HD 'Trust Exercises' 2012 Smoochfest
by tigersilver
Summary: The Auror Reorientation Programme ARP is a requirement for all Auror staff during the usual biennial reshuffling of departmental human resources. The stated goal of ARP is to build trust between two individuals, thus ensuring better partner pairings and promoting higher safety standards and maximized levels of efficiency.
1. Chapter 1

**Author: ** **tigersilver  
Prompt Number: **33  
**Gift for**: **tangybreath**  
**Title: **Trust Exercises  
**Pairing(s):** Harry/Draco, RW/PP.  
**Summary:** The Auror Reorientation Programme (ARP) is a requirement for all Auror staff during the usual biennial reshuffling of departmental human resources. The stated goal of ARP is to build trust between two individuals, thus ensuring better partner pairings and promoting higher safety standards and maximized levels of efficiency. Harry has missed the last few rounds of ARP due to one thing or another, but now it looms before him, a spectre. Ron's already working with good old Ernie and is fine with it, the ungrateful git, but Harry's just learnt he's been re-partnered with… Draco Malfoy?  
**Rating: **NC-17  
**Disclaimer:** All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.  
**Warning(s):** Epilogue, what epilogue? Harry, Ron and Draco are Aurors in good standing and all are in their mid-twenties. This tale is episodic chronologically and partially epistolary. Alcoholic beverages are consumed on-screen. Ex-Slytherins are heavily implied to be shagging or being shagged by ex-Gryffindors, mostly off-screen but not always.  
**Epilogue compliant?** NO. That would be a decided 'no'. Epilogue & JKR interview canon disregarded. (Hah!)  
**Word Count:** 19,500  
**Author's Notes:** Many thanks to my betas, the lovely L and C and L again. Without you this would've been much less palatable. Apologies in advance to my lovely prompter, as any further errors are mine own entirely and this may not quite be the fic my poor, dear prompter desired. Apologies to the readers, as this fic was intended to be half the size it is now. And apologies to the wonderful Mods, who extended me an extension whilst I wibbled.

* * *

_Dear Malfoy,_

_This is purely idiotic, this maintaining constant contact. Just so as you're aware __I'm__ aware. Let's keep these notes short and simple, please, and try to push on through. Far as I'm concerned we've no time to spare for this rubbish. Should think we know one another well enough by now without it, right? But you know how it is._

_Sincerely, _

_Potter_

* * *

_**Dear Potter, **_

_**I know.**_

_**Sincerely, **_

_**Malfoy**_

* * *

"But Roooon!"Harry drawled the word into an irritating, penetrating, whiney assault, dragging one single syllable into many warbling nasal notes and all the way out to the vanishing point on the horizon of bloody-headed irksomeness. "Ron. Ron, Ron,_ Roooonnnn_."

"What?"

He poked his best mate in the ribs for good measure, but sharp. Sufficient for Ron to shift his arse away from Harry and offer him up a filthy look for meting out a measure of his shabby mood.

"Whaaaat, Harry?" Ron whined in return, red brows winging skywards to indicate he was really only teasing. "What d'you want of me _now_?"

"Rooonnnn…I."Harry halted, cutting himself off. "I just. Hmm." He didn't quite know, really, what it was he wanted. It wasn't that Harry was in a snit so much as, well, he was an irritably befuddled soul at the moment and was consequently taking it out on someone who'd be willing to deal. He didn't get it; he _didn't_.

"Yeah?"

"I just don't."Hands were flapped, liquid sloshed unnecessarily, spilling over in a tiny spray."Don't."

"_Yeah_?" Ron ducked and covered immediately, like a good little Auror. Not a drop stuck him. "Don't what? Harry?"

Harry _knew _he was being petulant, pissy as a spoilt little tyke in a sweets shop, denied all the pretty Frogs. And likely all the Leaky could hear him tossing his mini-tantrum, even packed to the gills with after-hours Ministry types boozing and schmoozing and completely awash with the spillover of Diagon Alley's happy Friday shopper-quaffers as it was. The ambient audial pollution registered just short of 'insane' and like a huge lot of sardines they were, or so Harry decided as he gazed about. All of them, especially the Ministry ones: a shoal of vermillion and grey uniforms, interspersed with the deep purple of the DOM legion and the light blue of Games. Then there were the shop girls in their short skirts and the random tourists in their out-of-date robes, providing variety. Harry felt a bit of freak, moaning at Ron in the midst of an ad hoc party.

It wasn't like him to be this way, but, Merlin's bollocks, he'd just been landed in a bit of a sticky wicket by his superiors, hadn't he? He rather felt he deserved a little bout of doubt and self-pity, and wasn't Ron the best at yanking him out of same?

Come Monday, it'd be Malfoy, and then what?

If he peered hard enough, green eyes dodging through the roiling masses, he could even spy one Draco Malfoy. He was suitably attired in his elegant Auror scarlet, a few tables away and over, companionably downing cold ones with his old Housemates Zabini and Nott. For some reason Harry found this sight to be both irritating and intriguing.

Malfoy, hmm. Always with the Malfoy. Harry sighed heavily into his pint. It was Friday after work and Harry wasn't as happy as he could be for a 'Friday after work', so the obvious thing was to rag away on Ron and stomp on _his_ last nerve. Right?

"Ron. Mate." Right. Harry thumped a fist on the tabletop to ensure Ron was in fact paying enough attention to him. Though if course he'd been the one to let his attention wander…not that Ron wasn't used to him popping off mentally every now again. "I just don't see _why._"

"Regulations, mate." Ron was the voice of utter reason incarnate, bless him; humongously tall as compared to his friend, ginger-clashing-scarlet-robed and very stolidly planted before his beer, as he took to his Friday pints with great seriousness, always. He was also quick on the uptake; he knew immediately to what Harry referred. "Told you this before; will tell you again: regulations. Standard operating procedure."

"Sod that," Harry rejoined, sniffing. "Fucking ARP."

Ron was generally considered the less impulsive one of the two of them, four years or so into the daily business of Auroring. Harry knew it arose from Ron's cohabiting with and (by direct implication) regularly shagging one Pansy Parkinson. Who was a tarty Witch of the first order but also a brilliant strategist, as even Harry had been forced to admit. Harry absolutely refused to play her at Snap or canasta, Risk or bridge, much less Ron's preferred Wizarding chess or the bloody board game version of Quidditch that was all the rage lately. Not again, at least. Not. Ever. Again. He'd been eating conjured beans for weeks after one weekend's endless bout of double-dare strip poker, every spare sickle of his salary owed in chits to Parkinson and his pants held hostage.

Funny, but Parkinson had never given him back his pants. And funnier still, but it happened that Parkinson had something to do with the damnable ARP. Curiouser and curiouser, life was.

Harry snorted, eloquently.

"Suggest you cope," Ron advised him kindly but sternly. Harry scowled. "_I_ have. Ern's alright enough as a partner. We manage."

"Well, thanks. Thanks a sodding bunch, Ron."

"What?"

Harry pouted sourly into his pint. Ron's sexual peccadilloes with Parkinson aside, he was still Harry's spiritual port in a storm, so to speak. Just no longer his trusty work mate thanks to the nosy, interfering auspices of ARP. This fact pricked at some small part of Harry which felt green-eyed jealousy, so he lounged back in his seat and passed a jot more of his pervasively nasty feeling on over.

"Nice to know you're well over me," he observed snidely, reaching for a beer pretzel and, upon closer examination, dropping it abruptly with a moue of horror. He knew Tom wasn't much for his basic house-holding charms but still—mouldy bar snacks? "Already on to fresher fields, aren't we? Whoring your charms out to the likes of Ernie."

"Been over you." Ron cracked a faint smile and ignored the slight to his newest Auror partner. "Long, long ago. Distant galaxy, far away." He shrugged nonchalantly under Harry's suddenly keen eye. " Er, thought you knew?"

"Oh—oh, well, no. Knew?" Harry tilted his head in bemusement, flushing. "That ancient load of bollocks, Ron? Stuff that, then." He snorted, resettling his bum in his seat uneasily and shoving the pretzel bowl along down to Ron. Happened to glance Malfoy's way again in passing. "That was what? Fourth year? Fifth? A billion years ago? What_ever_; didn't last long enough to even notice. At least I don't think I did." He essayed an uncertain laugh, unsure as to whether his friend was actually still feeling angry…or just recalling the feel of being angry. With him—at him. "Notice. Er, then."

"I noticed you not noticing, mate," Ron retorted with a soothing smile. "Didn't much like it, either. Was…insulting."

"Huh," Harry rolled his tense shoulders under his half-unbuttoned robes, his eyes drifting back instantly to Malfoy at the word 'insulting'. He uttered a short, sharp bark of laughter at nothing in particular, but especially not Ron. Ron might've been a—

"Silly git. Thought you'd forgotten the whole fiasco by now. Should've done."

"Hah, not likely!" Ron laughed companionably enough, his broad chest vibrating with the easy rolling rumble Harry enjoyed most of all his friend's many ways of laughing: the deep rich one his adult physique had given rise to, thankfully years beyond the gawky stage of crack-toned, huffing, high-pitch boy-giggles and gargling snorts. He smiled at the very sound of it, heart lightening. He'd miss that, come Monday.

How was it Malfoy laughed again? Come to think, had he ever heard Malfoy laughing naturally?

"Bloody pain in my fine freaking freckled arse, Harry," Ron carried on talking next to Harry in a musing sort of way, shaking his head mock-sorrowfully. "You were all that and more. Just think on it: poor innocent barely adolescent _me_ mooning 'round something bloody awful over a sawed-off little twat like _you. You_, a half-mental blighter with a bloody price on his head and more than a bit stuck on my own sister. Imagine! Merlin, Harry, _don't_ remind me of any of it, please, mate. Don't think I've ever hated you quite so much as I did back then. Not even for TriWizard—or Hermione."

"Oi! Not my fault, Ron." Harry tossed his chin amiably, diverted. They'd been down this road before now and it'd been a smidge rocky in spots but well past, all the same. Dead issues, these childish fancies, these passing crushes, only of use now for pulling a bloke's pigtails, for fun. Harry felt he could stand a little fun; he was in a rare chomper of a mood, wasn't he? "It wasn't me who did it to you," he insisted when Ron slewed his red head about and made a funny face at him, beetling his brows threateningly. "It was you. Had not a clue, did I? Very clueless I was, back then."

"You're damn right you were," Ron nodded peaceably, his eyebrows happy again. Then fondly quirked, soon after. "'Clueless' just about describes it. More like thick. Little berk."

"Thick."

Harry mulled over the word, decided it had suited him, once. Maybe still, if the ARP thing was such a hurdle.

"Right, okay, thick, if you want. Well…here's to, anyway. Bygones, yeah?" He raised his pint up high. "And, uh, er, Ron, _I_ still say cheers to a certain beneficial cluelessness on my part, alright? Can't tell me as it's always a bad thing, me acting the idiot. Saved us both a deal of trouble, didn't it?"

"Acting, was it? Fuck, fine. _Salut_, Harry." Ron nodded, chortled cheerily and downed half his drink with a certain degree of ferociously intent vehemence. Smacked his lips a few times and methodically chomped up a questionable pretzel. Harry watched him; clearly Ron was thinking.

"Yes?"

"Hmm," Ron blinked at the pretzel bowl and then stuck out his tongue. "Ew, right? I can't believe I just ate that."

Harry laughed, great gulping giggles rising up through his ennui and his nagging discontent, wiping them away for the moment. "Who's the idiot now, Ron?"

"Erm," Ron carried on with the topic, apparently undeterred by his exposure to botulism."It did, yes, though you're not exactly a prize _idiot_, Harry. More like just…well. Can't describe it, really, what _you _are. You're you, Harry."

"I'm...me," Harry echoed blankly. And then grinned at his glass, amused. "Very good, Ron. Yes, yes, I am."

His friend's blue eyes flickered round the room for a moment before returning to settle on Harry's fading grin. "Yeah, well, for all your faults and fancies, you're you."He shook his fiery head briefly and his handsome features smoothed into their usual mild-mannered mien. "And that's alright with me, I think. Generally."

"Gosh, gee, _thanks_, Ron."

"Sod off," his friend snorted cheerily. "Erm, ah. You know what, though? Harry?"

"Hmm?"

"Was a good thing, really—what happened? Or what _didn't _ever happen, more like. Purged it out of my system for ever more, I'd say, thank bleeding Merlin. _And_ all the good little fairies." He sipped, nursing it for a second, swallowing slowly. Harry stared at him, blinking and waiting. Ron raised his chin at a challenging angle, winking slyly as he did. "Just think. I would've never moved on to our dear Hermione if it hadn't been for you being such a total dickwad. And if I'd not shagged our Hermione and gotten all that 'shag-your-best-friends' nonsense over with, then I'd not have fallen in with Pansy when Hermione up and dumped me. And it's all due to you, mate. Sodding catalyst, you are."

"Yep." Harry grinned, relieved, his foul mood completely forgotten for the moment. "Good that way, aren't I? Useful."

"Very. My hero."

"Piss off!"

They bumped fists in cheery bonhomie. Bumped glasses next and jigged down their beers like wet-behind-the-ears pub rowdies instead of staid, sober seniors and trusted Ministry employees. Tom, being the benign and excellent Wizarding barkeep he was, had another round set up before them in a twinkling.

"Bottoms up!"

"Cheers to cluelessness," Ron grinned. "All 'round. Good on_ you, _thick thing. Saved my life, I think. In a way. Even then."

"Hear, hear. What you said." A significant look from Harry to Tom had Malfoy's glass topped up as well.

Drink was steadily consumed for a bit, in a nice quiet pocket of silence. It contrasted well with the frenetic social bustle about them. That bustle seemed to particularly include Draco Malfoy, who was yukking it up at some remark his mate Zabini must've made, all brilliant white teeth and ice-blond hair tumbling over a pleasantly flushed forehead. Zabini was still as fit as ever was, of course, and the blue of Games garb well suited his dark looks.

Harry suddenly recalled he'd been irate, earlier. Over ARP, was it?

"…Yeah," he mumbled. "But, well. Roooon."

He propped his chin on one curled first meditatively. His eyes strayed to Malfoy again, but a tad balefully. He instantly switched to gazing blankly at an unsuspecting Tom when he realized he was glaring. Malfoy sent him a puzzled glance which Harry placidly ignored. He'd be dealing with Malfoy soon enough, wouldn't he? No point in dwelling on it; what had he and Ron been speaking of about just now? No—before now?

"Hmnh?" Ron grunted. "Eh, Harry?" Funnily, _he _didn't seem to know either. Harry scowled at him. "Well, what?"

Harry cast his thoughts like a gossamer net, hoping to recapture some sense of where he'd been going, conversationally.

Oh…yes. _That_.

"Huh. When you think about it, really think about it, Ron, it's more good on Hermione for telling you to your face _you _were a total twat and should sod off and find someone else to play your little games with. Our Hermione's a good girl, wants a decent man in her life, 'specially after that debacle with Corner."

"Tell me about it," Ron sighed. "Bloody Corner. Should've gutted him when we'd the chance. What I'd do to Corner would land me Azkaban right smart, I'll tell-"

"S'not unreasonable of her," Harry continued doggedly, talking over his friend's muttering. "Imagine how miserable you'd both be now if she hadn't dumped you? Worse than Corner, even."

"Oh god _yes_!" Ron's blue eyes opened wide, before he rolled them meaningfully in the direction of the unseen heavens. His happy face returned swiftly, like the swallows to Capistrano. "Like I said before, Harry—_all_ the little fairies, yeah? It's a blooming miracle is what. How that all worked out. Someone's been looking after yours truly, I swear, all this time. And maybe you as well."

"Me?"

"Well, yeah. We'd not have suited at all, you and me," Ron shrugged philosophically. "Or me and her. Hell, _you_ and her._ And_ m'sister. Better off friends is all I'm saying here."

"Drink to that," Harry agreed, momentarily diverted. They did, promptly. "Very true," he continued, wiping his wet mouth with his sleeve in a decided gesture. "Friends are friends and lovers, lovers. And can be no other reason Parkinson's not outright murdered you in your sleep yet, Ron, than the last bit. _She_ must care something fierce for you, poor muddled bint."

"'Zactly so," Ron hummed sweetly. "And thank my bleeding stars and garters for muddled women. To Hermione, then! And my own sweet Pansy."

He raised his latest pint. Harry followed, choking slightly over the _sweet_ in conjunction with the _Pansy _but manfully keeping his gob shut. They both poured another down in mutual admiring gratitude for the absent Hermione's good sense and the also absent Parkinson's strange affection for the second youngest Weasley child. By the bar, Tom discreetly lifted his wand, instantly replacing their empties. And Malfoy's, too, at Harry's significant little nod.

"Hum…that's brill, that. Beer is." Ron smacked his lips, licking froth away. "Putting them down tonight, aren't you?"

"Hmm." Harry hummed, eyes on Malfoy. Again, sod it. "I guess so, yeah. In the mood for it."

"But, anyhow, Harry, as I was saying," Ron twisted round to face Harry, his expression earnest. "This ARP thingummy with Malfoy you're pitching a fit over? Grin and bear it, that's my best advice. Old Ironsides wants us all 'fresh', remember? Fresh and lemon-scented, attitude-wise, ready to take on all comers. So, yeah, do your bit and belt up like the rest of us do, alright? Make some nice with the bloke, chat him up a little. Be easier, won't it? In the long run. You rubbing along with him."

"I know," Harry sighed. Sucked down the remainder of his pint and signaled Tom for two more with a crook of the finger. Plus one, of course. No point in being rude y stopping now, halfway through a great tie-on. And Malfoy looked to be enjoying himself. Not that Harry cared, really, because he didn't. Much. "I really_ do_ know, Ron. And it's not _him_. It's just that it's—"

"Him, being Malfoy. _I _know, but he's not half-bad a'tall, see? For a toffee-nosed bugger, that is. And he covered Michaelson's back on the Rudolph case like a bloody starship trooper—"

"Yeah, I heard about that."

"And then also Ernie's, these last two years," Ron went on, nodding seriously. "Fact is, Ernie's got only all good things to say about him. Beats my bloody ear off sometimes, the chatterbox; all starry-eyed gaga and whatnot. One man Malfoy fan club walking, Ern is. But, yeah. Give him a bit of break, Harry. He's…well, from all I hear, he deserves it. He's a damned fine Auror."

"No, Ron," Harry shook his head. "It's not even that. Malfoy's fine; I've no problem with Malfoy, not now—not even a little bit, yeah? That's—well, that's totally ancient history, yeah? Eons ago, in fact—a billion bloody centuries gone and let's keep it that way, shall we, right? Right?"

"Yeah, okay. Right."

"It's…It's only…" Harry huffed. "We've not much in common, you know? Never had, really. He's like…he's _him _and I'm—well, I'm _me_, Ron. Like you said, I'm _me_. Can't even think what to say to him, not a bit. It's as though—it's." He waved a hand at the madding crowd, chatting each other up, doing their social best to be fascinating people for one another. "Whatever _are_ we supposed to talk about during those long stakeouts—peacock breeding? Genealogy? I _don't _think."

"Nawww," Ron stretched his arms out to their widest extent, rolling his head on his neck to crack out a few kinks. "Rubbishing, genealogy is. Goes on forever, just ask my Mum. And for fuck's sake, Harry! Don't even want to _think _about peacocks. Bloody birds. Painful." He sighed, took up his latest lager in a business-like fashion and matched Harry's current sipping level in one long swallow."No, no. Not how you go about it, Harry; not a bit of it. Talk to Malfoy 'bout Seeking or something. _Quidditch_, mate. Everyone can speak Quidditch; everyone _does_, mostly. Certainly the Blond One. He's great guns for it, old Ern says. Rabid, worse even than Pansy."

"Great."Harry huffed unhappily. "Fucking fantastic." He peered through his mostly empty pint glass at the tavern scene beyond, sighting metaphorically down the long path to a likely very dull future, at least at work. The slightly distorted amber-hued view of Malfoy calmly demolishing his gift drink was not reassuring. Seeking, again? "_Booor_-ing, Ron. Dull."

"What?" Ron prompted, bright-eyed and sitting up to attention. "Problem?"

"_Yes_, problem," Harry snorted his burgeoning annoyance. He'd found a whole new subject to be irritable over, which suited him just fine. A man was allowed to be not all sweetness and light sometimes. "Quidditch, is it? Rather think I've had enough of Quidditch from _you_, best pal o' mine._ And _your pretty sister. _And _your sexy Slytherin squeeze."

"Oi! My ears, Harry—my poor ears! Blasphemy!" Ron cast away his glass to clutch his head, shaking it, grimacing madly. "Enough of _Quidditch_, Harry? Never! And she's not my 'squeeze', mate, she's my 'lover'. Just ask her, she'll tell you."

"Lover? Ugh!"Harry grimaced just as horribly right back.

"What?" Ron demanded, waggling his eyebrows. " S'more elegant, she says. Kind of agree with her, yeah? It's a nice word, really, 'lover'. Better than 'fuck-toy'."

"Oh, shut your gob, Ron," Harry grumped, looking anywhere but at his friend and definitely not at Malfoy. "It's not that, either, alright? Like I care who it is you're shagging, eh? I'm just…look here, I happen to be a mite sick of the Quidditch, alright? It's dreadful when you never play anymore, is all. That's it. Can't even stand to listen to it on the wireless these days; have better things to waste my time over. Rather read a book, man."

"Poor lad," Ron pulled a face at him. "Sick of Quidditch, you say? Completely deranged and so very young ." He patted Harry's hand solicitously. "Too sodding famous to be made into the social pariah he should be, but yet…somehow scarred for life. An undesirable in our midst. Well, well. Whatever shall we do with you, Harry?"

"Very funny, dickface," Harry growled. "Shut it."

Ron sniggered."Oh—hey? Does the Ministry know you're impaired? That you've gone recently mental? I'd think some counseling would be more in order than sending you back out in the field with poor Malfoy. Pity the man, I do. He's in for it."

"Freaking wanker," Harry riposted. "I am not mental, twat, I am _buggered_. Shut your flapping trap about my failing mental faculties and_ help_ me, alright? I have to say something to him, come Monday. We'll have to talk, Ron, we're to be partners and there's more to life than casework and stakeouts. What on earth _about_?"

He reached out a disgruntled hand and pinched Ron's earlobe, hard.

"Ow! Oi, Harry! That stung, mate!"

Harry glared."So? Take this seriously, Ron. I am."

"You are?"


	2. Chapter 2

_Malfoy, _

_I'll be at the Leaky Friday. Want to grab drinks together? Begin as we mean to go on. Sociable._

_Ron and I always do. _

_See you there?_

_Potter_

* * *

**_Potter,_**

**_I'll be at the Leaky Friday—who isn't?_**

**_But with friends. Let's save the niceties for Monday, shall we? No sense pushing it. _**

**_Thanks for asking._**

**_Regards,_**

**_Malfoy._**

* * *

Monday morning, far too early, after a Sunday spent doing little other than reading the _Prophet _Sunday edition and consuming far too much caffeine, Harry thought back. It had gone on and on, he and Ron, rambling, but there were things. Important bits of information, stuff he could use.

It all added up, little by little. Didn't it? His boredom, Malfoy's hair, all those pints, Ron…Ron. Even Parkinson.

"No,_ really_—_my_ case, Ron? Get your buggering hands off it, yeah?" he'd said to Ron, at one point. "Yes, I mean this;_ yes_, I am serious. It's a problem." Harry took a deep breath. "And here's the thing. I should think _you'd_ understand what I'm saying, at least. There's comes a time when it's too much, Ron, just all too, too much. And isn't your Parkinson bloody mad for sport? I mean,_ think_, Ron. Think for just one moment. It's like Hermione all over again, on and on over essays and lessons and the library and so forth, but instead of that it's every single one of League Beater average scores from three centuries ago, all sorted in Parkinson's brain in some massive spreadsheet. And she spews them out at the drop of a hat if you don't stop her. Absurd. Don't know how you stand it, really I don't."

"But, _Harry_." His friend seemed vaguely pained. "Harry."

"No. No, don't defend her. There's no defense for_that_. Oh, eh. Want another? Yeah? Good."

He waved at Tom and—almost as an afterthought, but not—added another one to his growing tab for Malfoy, as a spot of social insurance. Monday meant seeing Malfoy all the damned time, day in and day out. Working with him, even. But ARP first, for fuck's sake. Oh, bloody hey. Bingo.

"But,_ really_—I. Harry!" Ron began again, always his own dogged self, always so earnest, but Harry ploughed along too, side by side in the swim of conversation, tapping his fingertips impatiently on the table in exactly the way he knew for fact irritated his friend to the utmost. "I can't see why you suddenly consider Quidditch a prob—"

Time to dig in t the meat of the matter, be serious. Because Malfoy…how was he ever to deal with Malfoy?

"No, no, don't argue with me, Ron, or make me try to see reason or anything like, alright? Trust me, it _is _a problem, at least for me, okay? The savour's gone—I'm bored. Partly because I can clearly recall all three of us replaying the twenty-one matches held during the Great Games of '28 in excruciating, lengthy, ghastly detail just last weekend on that stupid board game you bought her. Every one of them. Every. Single. One. The whole night through and most of Saturday too. No sane, sensible person on Earth should retain that much information about what basically amounts to what was a giant, global, year-long scrum of hopped up hormonally challenged idiots. It's unconscionable. No—_it's _mental. The game, the fans. Not _me_."

"Well…" Ron frowned into his beer, aimlessly poking at the bowl of pretzels of unknown origin and age Tom liked to leave lurking on the tables for show. Harry grimaced. "Hmm."

"Well_ nothing_, Ron."

Ron sighed. "Well, _yes_, alright, Harry, you've a point, of sorts, maybe. Not that_ I_ see your point, though I'll be a nice chap and allow you to have one, but."

"But?"

"But I _like_ that about her." The flaming head tilted as Ron considered the golden-orange colour of his draught. "I like it_ she_ knows—that_ she_ cares, Harry. And, you know? All those Slytherin alumnae are rather stellar at it, the Games, the league; sort of a matter of House pride, I think. Think they wager on 'em or something. Retrospectively. Fantasy games, like the Muggles do. Not just silly old board games."

"Gambling!"Harry muttered darkly. "On stupid old Quidditch. Bah!"

"Yes, gambling, Harry," Ron shot back instantly. "Where's the harm in a little flutter, eh? Too, Pansy's a sight better than me at scrum stats, you know it? S'truth. Even with the Cannons and I know the Cannons, Harry, you know I do. How d'you think we fell into the sack in the first place, eh?"

"Urgh." Harry shuddered, wincing. His eyes slid to Malfoy, chuckling and halfway out of his seat and into Zabini's pale blue lap. Harry disapproved, on principle. Slytherins! "Pardon me, right?"

He waved a feeble hand, waving off his friend's hopeful stare.

"But I actually don't want to think about it, any of it. Not you, not you with Pansy, and not Quidditch, for god's sake. Just…well, bloody hell, Ron, all I'm asking for is for you to help me out here. Suggest something else, _anything_ else, for the two of us to talk about, me and Malfoy. Something I can say to him, something he can say to me. Something Wizarding; history, maybe? He probably gobbles up that shite. I've been reading up on the Goblin Wars myself recently. Fascinating what went on."

"Er…" Ron shrugged, dubious. "Yeah, er…no? No, Harry. Pretty much there's nothing. Not that regular people talk about. It's Quidditch or nothing, sorry. Unless you want to dive into the gossip—"

"Gah!" Harry groaned into his glass. "Fuck it, Ron." Took a fast slurp and waved it about randomly. "So much to look forward to, now," he grumbled dourly. "And you—_you_ need to promise to come looking for my body should I expire of undue excitement, Ron, after this shite ARP programme starts. If your Parkinson knows the crap Cannons forwards and backwards by rote, then _he'll_ have down pat every score of every match for every League team since bloody 1532." A subtle tip of his head indicated Malfoy, now moved on to happily consuming his accumulated shots of Firewhisky with his friends. "Or before," he added, darkly. "And foreign too, I bet. Prob'ly knows all the bloody Hungarians."

"Bloody 1370, actually—or so Ernie claims," Ron chirped cheerily, smirking as he patted Harry's shoulder. "Year of the First Master's Tourney, it was. And, um, yeah—not just the Bulgarians, Harry. The Japanese, the Australians…er, um, even knows about _Quodpot_, if you can believe it. Was this one time he said they went even farther ba—"

"Oh, my fucking Merlin, spare me!" Harry dropped his forehead on the tabletop, gently beating it there, fingers clenching 'round the handle of his pint in time. "That's too much. Too _much_, Ron. A little help, here? Something—anything? I can't do this alone, pal. I flat out refuse to spend the next few years talking up the weather."

"Pathetic, Harry." Ron snorted into his glass, spluttering beer over half the table. "You're bloody pathetic; give over, do."

"Urrr…" Harry groaned feelingly. "Rooonnnnn."

"You'll have to promise to tell me everything that goes on, mate," Ron added earnestly. "Really, you will. I want to know how you get on with him. Could use the laughs."

"Bah. Sod off." Harry reluctantly raised his head from his hastily folded arms but slumped his person ever lower in his chair, sucking up the last of his old pint semi-sideways to allow for his expected half-scowl. "You're heartless." The unknown liquid that had splashed up a moment before dripped down his chin, of course. "And evil." He scowled harder, noting a spot on his spec lenses. "I may possibly hate you, Ron."

"Right, suuure you do. Carry on, then."

"Heartless, as I sai—_wait_!" Harry sat up straight suddenly, clutching his glass to his chest. He brightened, just a smidge, his eyes widening as if at a pleasant recollection. "Oh, now, hang on! Hold the bloody fuck up!"

"Eh?"


	3. Chapter 3

_Malfoy, _

_Heard from the others you've a leg up on some the ARP activities they have us do, specifically the fencing. Is that true?_

_Potter_

* * *

**_Potter,_**

**_Yes. _**

**_Malfoy_**

* * *

Really, he'd talked with Ron a long while. But that was the way of it. Always had been.

And realizing that perhaps he and Malfoy had some other out, some common ground other than the old and the tried and the boring, well!

Life was immeasurably better, somehow. Friday was Friday again, the way it ought to be.

"That's not too shabby, is it?" he'd mused aloud, terribly pleased. Ron grinned at him, happy to be pleased with Harry happy again. Even if he'd no clue, the berk.

"…If it's true, that is. Hope it is…" Harry stuck an arm in the air, straight as a wand at match point, and waved it about in a somewhat militant fashion, his gaze fixed on nothing in particular. As if…fencing. "Should be, knowing _him_…hmm. Alright, alright. Always wanted to try it out after I saw in on the telly. Could be good."

"If _what's_ true? If what's good?"

Certainly Harry's glancing aimless gaze was _not_ on Auror Malfoy again, whom, Harry noted only in passing, was just as clearly_ not_-watching him just as curiously out of the corner of _his_ own one eye. Surreptitious, like. All of it. As befitting good Aurors.

"What _are_ you on about?"

Harry instantly affected not to notice anything other than his glass. And his own arm, angling out abruptly at what he fondly believed might be something called '_en garde'_.

"_What_, Harry?" Ron insisted, perking up visibly along with, grinning already in anticipation like a bosom friend should, even if aforesaid best buddy was no longer one's actual Auror partner due the exigencies of idiot Ministry. "What the fuck are you doing? You nearly hit me, you know?"

"Hmm?"

"_What_ is it you've always wanted to try?"

"What, Ron?"

"You never mentioned there was anything specific, have you? I mean, other than Aurors and we've done that—are doing. Though can't say I'm not glad you've taken up an interest in _something_ other than Auroring—or at least are thinking about it, finally. Pansy says you need a hobby of some sort. And _why_, Harry Potter," he sent Harry a pointed glare which might or might not have been real,"is it your best friend is always last to know these things, eh? That's you've an interest. You never tell me squat, dickhead; it's a bloody bad habit of yours. I think I might just hate you, too."

"Hey!" Harry scowled. "M'not a dickhead, Ron! I just never—"

"I know _I'm _horribly wounded, _terribly_ offended; you don't even _know_. _Harry_."

"Er, eh?! Ron!"

"Kidding!" Ron, unable to keep it up for long, at last burst out laughing, jabbing a forefinger Harry's way when his friend's jaw dropped. "Oh!" he gasped happily. "Your face!"

"Arse."

"But, but, really. Harry? Tell me."

Harry laughed a little rustily, and dropped his extended arm. Straight into a puddle of something… a yellow liquid? And oily?… on the table. He hoped it was only alcohol but Tom's housecleaning left much to be desired. He scowled at the noxious stain spreading up his sleeve until Ron poked him.

"Harry? What's it? Seriously, 'cause you've never mentioned—"

"It's nothing even very big, Ron," Harry grimaced. "I've only just remembered there's fencing in the programme—Muggle fencing, with no magic involved. And I've heard Malfoy's supposed to be pretty much ace at swinging a sword about…so, er, maybe not so bad, yeah, this ARP thing? Always wanted to learn how to use a sword." He hunched his shoulders, frowning. "You know, the proper way, not just to whack horcruxes."

"Hmmm." Ron lifted a shoulder right back him philosophically, grinning. "Can see your point. Could be fun. Not my own sort of cuppa, but…hey. Alright, then. Fun."

"…Fun," Harry echoed. "Yeah, that. With Malfoy."

A little ways away, Malfoy raised an eyebrow at the latest fresh glass Tom presented him with and nodded, politely, and also semi-sideways, as if he didn't want to call any attention to Harry's little gift. His repeated series of gifts, rather. He barely bobbed his maybe-pointy chin and barely possibly even smiled a bit Harry's direction. Harry caught the smile, though, however brief it was. He forced a rather plastic polite smile of his own in return and nodded placidly, every inch the comrade- to- be, come Monday.

"Yep, with Malfoy. Knew you'd come round, Harry. He's decent, really. Might even be…fun."

No harm in being friendly. Was there?

"Right," he replied offhandedly, not really minding Ron, who'd stuck both hands in the bowl of mouldy pretzels and was playing with them idly. "Right, right. Yes." Frowning he noted that his friend had the beginnings of a structure built 'round the yellow puddle and was fiddling ominously with the mustard bottle and the vinegar shaker. He'd been playing with the pretzels for a while, apparently. "That's what I said, yes. Fun."

"Fun, fun, fun. Yep, whatever floats your carpet, man," Ron mumbled to the mustard bottle, affecting not to notice anything at all as to where Harry had his attention directed. "But, Harry?" He balanced several pretzel sticks on top of several others, anchoring the bases with mustard smudges. Harry noticed the concoction of condiments and snack food sticks was starting to look a lot like an edible version of Stonehenge. "Be aware they change up the programme for every different pair of Aurors, alright? It's what they call 'tailored'. Ern and I, we did a bit of swimming and some other stuff, too, when it was our turn. And, um, some game called 'strip poker' with two other Aurors—er, Gracie Allen and that other Greengrass girl, it was. Kind of fun, that part. Had to rappel down this one cliff together, too. No wands allowed, only rope—all sorts of weird stuff like that. Oddball."

"Yeah?"

"'Trust-building',the ARP lot call it….well, that's what Pansy said when I asked her later. But none of it's really what you'd call honest-to-Merlin _Auroring_, Harry. There's no conflict involved or competition. It's all working together and being sort of…hmm." He waved a set of mustardy fingers. "Soppy stiff. Soft-like. So watch out, yeah? Might not be what you're expecting. Could be…could be a little…freaky, yeah. But, um…fun. It _was_ fun. I like the cliff hanging thing."

"'Kay," Harry agreed, willingly enough, though he wasn't really listening. Malfoy was tying knots in cherry stems with his tongue. If Harry peered closely he could just make that out. Funny, he'd never thought Malfoy was the type to be lingually dexterous. Lord, but the things he was learning, even without ARP. Bloody ARP. "Thanks, Ron."

"Right on, then; matter settled." Ron sat back with a sigh and abandoned his half-built Stonehenge to the creeping yellow puddle. "Now, about those Cannons? You've a fair amount to catch up if you're planning on keeping pace with the Blond One, Harry, and may as well begin with the best team out there, yeah? Cause I've noticed you're a little rusty of late; noticed you've been flagging. Can't have that, Harry. Not acceptable, mental or not mental. So, let's run through some basics, yeah? In what year was—and how many points did—"

* * *

_Dear Malfoy,_

_Apparently we're to take all our meals together, including breakfast (see attached memo from Peters. And Dawlish. __Dawlish__!) Realizing this may interfere with your social life; how do you want to play it?_

_Sincerely, _

_Potter_

* * *

**_Dear Potter,_**

**_Shouldn't be a problem._**

**_Sincerely, _**

**_Malfoy_**

* * *

_Dear Malfoy,_

_How do you mean? Thought you had some swish bloke living with you? Besides, I don't __eat__ breakfast. _

_Sincerely, _

_Potter_


	4. Chapter 4

**_Dear Potter,_**

**_He moved out months ago. Nor do I. How about meet up for takeaway beverage of choice at that new shop in the mornings, before going in? Would work for me. Eight o'clock. _**

**_Sincerely, _**

**_Malfoy_**

* * *

_Dear Malfoy,_

_That's the most you've written me yet. Cheers! Fine. See you tomorrow morning; we'll sort out lunch and supper then._

_In a hurry, sorry, _

_Potter_

* * *

"Given as you do _not_ have years and years at your disposal, gentleman, to learn in your bones and muscle memory the fine art of Muggle swordplay, we have an available incantation designed just for that very purpose." Their instructor was a petite man of possibly Arabian extraction, in his mid-thirties. Golden-skinned and soft of voice, he was quite attractive. Harry blinked at him and wished he'd caught his name, but he'd been too busy staring furtively at Malfoy dressed all in tight white fabric to hear it. "Which I shall happily apply at this time…if you'll allow?"

"Super," he piped up, pleased as punch to hear. He grinned happily over at Malfoy, standing across from him. Both were already garbed in the safety suiting required and armed to the teeth with whippy foils. Red buttons decorated the ends of them, wire cage helmets sat atop their heads, smashing down their hair. They looked like aliens, but strangely elegant ones. At least Malfoy did. "That's a relief, isn't it, Malfoy? No waiting on me, apparently."

"Indeed." Malfoy only stood a little taller, if at all possible, and managed to appear impossibly austere. He looked to their instructor intently, peering from under his flattened fringe where the underband of the safety mask pressed it flat. The mask rising above his head at the ready jangled faintly as he shifted smartly to face the man. "Fortunately, sir, I've no need of your Charm, thank you, as I've taken up a bit of interest in the sport and been practising on my own time." He flipped a thumb Harry's way. "Potter here, though? He's missed that last volley of partner switch-ups if I recollect rightly. Not been the ARP rounds before now at all. Likely hasn't ever been exposed to any of the usual ARP exercises, either; not Muggle backgammon, nor cake decoration, nor fencing, nor—" He glanced back to Harry. "None of it, right?"

"I did, yes,"Harry nodded agreeably, happy to be the focus of Malfoy's interest, as the other Auror hadn't been particularly chatty prior, "or rather, I haven't, no."

Malfoy quirked a wry brow at him when the instructor's handsome face clouded up with puzzlement. "Excuse me, Auror?" The man's rather nice nose crinkled enquiringly.

"Er..." Harry fidgeted in place. Perhaps that hadn't been clear, what he meant by it? "Um, it's no, actually...except it's also a litle bit 'yes', too."

"Huh? Come on, Potter, which is it, yes or no? You're confusing the poor man." Harry's new partner-to-be curled his lips mockingly but not in a nasty way. In a much more teasing way..and who knew Malfoy could tease? Harry blinked at him, a bit pleased by it. "Me, as well," Malfoy's lips even turned up at the edges. Harry noticed again he'd a very nice smile...when he cared to use it. "And _I_ at least have some passing handle on how to interpret Basic Potterese."

"No, no, that's not. Er, sorry." Harry flushed, shuffling his feet the tiniest bit, but he wasn't feeling particularly embarrassed, nor angry either. "I'm sorrry, I meant...well." He—according to Ron, at least, and sometimes Hermione—wasn't maybe the most adept at conveying clearly his train of thought to others. Unless he was instructing Junior Aurors, that was. Which was totally different again."Hmm, yes. Let me explain?" At the instructor's willing hand flap, he carried on. "It's like this. I signed up with Ronald Weasley, right? Straight after the War it was."

Malfoy hummed at him encouragingly too, so Harry carried on.

"Right, so I was posted with Ron for the first couple of years and we both missed the first run of ARP when it was begun because we two were pulled in without the full three years of training. The elder Aurors thought it was too soon to sic on anyone other then ourselves, I think, as we were a little, ah-let's call it unreliable, at first? But then Kingsley himself said bhe thought it best to keep us situated how we were through the next ARP, mainly because we had a long-term project _en train_. Those Neo-Nutters; remember them, Malfoy? Nasty bastards."

"Took forever to clear that up, yes." Malfoy nodded at him, blandly settling into a rather elegant stance, epee resting along his one thigh. The instructor also nodded, though he surreptitiously checked the shell-thin face of his wristwatch.

"Right, so." Harry, feeling that he was rather deep in and the only way to scrabble himself out was to doggedly continue talking, waved a safety-gloved hand and gamely bebbled along. "Then I was laid up, okay? Spell damage sustained from Doholov's second cousins, the Kinskis; pretty serious stuff. Nearly left me a Squib, that. I missed the next ARP loop due to my incredibly long and tedious magical recuperation, though I was forced by Kings to sort out all the paperwork that case generated, which was rather a lot, thanks, and then I spent another bloody half year puttering 'round the Ministry chasing down cold cases while I was in the last stages of healing because the St. Mungo's lot wanted me only on light duty for ages. So my partner, Ron, he was sent out in the field with two of our better second-year interns, Bert Sampson and Nelly Delilah, and I wasn't, but he was still _my_ partner officially, pretty much. Ron, that is."

"I...see, yes, Auror Potter," the instructor made haste to interrupt him. "That's...well, that's very interesting, thank you. But, now, if we could just? The time is..."

Harry laughed nervously, casting up hands and foil in a 'what do I do' sort of way. In for a Knut, in for Galleon, as they said, right? "Yes, well, almost through, pardon. This bit's important cause that's how I learnt about ARP at all. Anyway, Ron was finally reassigned after a while but I wasn't, so...um. He told me all about his and what he and his new partner had to do, you see, so I feel like I do know a little, if not every detail. Any road, it was all a bit complicated, really, the way it worked out, but we had a good long run in the end, we two. So, no, it's _my _first time here, in ARP, though my old partner's already well through it and out the other side. He's paired up with Ernie Macmillan; you know him?"

"Ernie?" Malfoy snorted quietly into a fist though Harry noticed his eyes were sparkling expressively. "Who doesn't?"

"Yes, yes." The handsome instructor nodded tersely at Harry's hopeful stare. "Ye…es. And I believe I do follow completely now, Auror Potter. You're essentially attempting to convey you have heard of this process from others, including your original partner, Auror Weasley, but aren't necessarily familiar with it first-hand, isn't that right? Keep in mind, though, the trust-building exercises and tests we employ in ARP are quite...different than what the Aurors use to support teamwork. And they vary a great deal from team-to-team, cycle-to-cycle, as well, depending upon what your particular ARP counsellor determines each set of new partner's strengths and weaknesses may be. Fencing is _not_ always included. Nor is cake decoration."

"Yes, exactly." Harry nodded happily. It seemed he'd managed not to put off the fit instructor, not Malfoy, either. "No cakes this round; got it! It's all Greek to me, sir, the real process behind it—except not. So much." And not that he'd ever believed Malfoy was a poor substitute for Ron, either. Malfoy was an excellent Auror, one of the very best. Ernie had taken great pains to let Harry know he should entertain no worries on that front. And not that Ern himself was a bad chap or a less than optimal replacement for Harry; Ron seemed more than alright with him and Harry wasn't resentful at all, really. Over any of it. It was just. It was strange, was all, not having his best mate at his side after all this long time. But there were obviously about to be good things to make up for that, weren't there? "But I have been really looking forward to the Muggle way of duelling with swords, sir," he added, rising enthusiasm infusing his very voice. "An awful lot. If that helps at all?"

"Of course it does, Auror." The instructor eyed Harry carefully. "A valid interest is always praiseworthy. And we all are aware you are quite, quite strong in your magic, are we not?" Then he sidled back several paces, well out of Harry's way. "Lovely, thank you, Auror. Moving on, now. Auror Malfoy?"

"Sir?" Malfoy sighed, ever so quietly. "Yes, sir?" Harry caught him rolling his eyes—and also checking his own time piece, a Muggle-style Swiss work-of-art which looked quite sleek and jewel-like stretched over the skin-tight opaque cloth protecting his wrists.

"And you, Auror?" The instructor, whose name Harry was now sincerely regretfully aware he hadn't managed to take note of, as he was decidedly even more attractive when provoked, perked up a narrow black eyebrow, leaning forward enquiringly. "You claim some prior experience with this sport? An expertise level?"

"I do."

"Hmm." The man tapped his cleft chin thoughtfully; Harry happily enjoyed the manner in which his full red lips pursed. "Now you mention it, I do seem to have seen that in your file. Rosewell Barr was your your previous instructor at this facility? Brilliant, then; Barr is most excellent a teacher. That will be most helpful for this first exercise, I am certain. Auror Potter here will have the advantage of an experienced opponent for his maiden attempt, yes?."

"I should hope so." Malfoy looked stern and somehow quite noble as he inclined his fair head, his face only a shade or two pinker than the white of the odd looking hood and the white-gilt of his scalp. "I do try, sir, to keep up with practising and I fancy I've the way of it now. Sufficiently so, I should think, to hold my own without the standard incantation, I believe. Even with Potter here freshly powered up magically and ready to go at it, er, all Crups-and-Kneazles, shall we say?" He glanced over at Harry, an eyelid drooping slyly. "You do take your sport seriously, don't you, Potter? Because I'll expect nothing less, not from you. In fact, I'll expect rather more, really."

"Hah! Wanker, you'll wish I don't in a minute!" Harry burst into delighted laughter. Malfoy looked so droll, almost winking like that. "No fear, mate. No fear."

"Never fear." The man sent him a slanting smile, as if they shared a private joke. "Exactly so. If, of course, that's honestly alright with you, Potter? I am correct in thinking you'll not want go easy this first time round?"

"Sure, Malfoy. Let's really have at it, yeah?" Harry shrugged amiably, lips twitching up at the corners. "Looking forward it, actually. Been cooped up in the department for days. I could really use a little real live exercise." He patted his trim belly. "Go all soft if I don't watch it."

"Brilliant." And Malfoy truly seemed to think it so.

Harry found he wasn't so much taken aback or surprised by Malfoy's pointed interest for Muggle fencing as he was bewildered. He'd heard Malfoy was well above par at it via the Ministry grapevine though he'd not the slightest idea why that would be. So much so it was evident he'd been combatent with the foils long before ARP began using the sport for its reorientation lark. It was puzzling, that: Wizards duelled only with wands, generally, and Malfoy's family hadn't seemed the sort to indulge their son in Muggle sport lessons. Or Muggle anything, for that matter. But—he shook his head over it haplessly—what_ever_. Floating carpets, to each his own, and all that.

"Well, then." The instructor stepped forward and approached them, to stand between. "Enough chitchat. Let us begin at once. Auror Potter, if you'll come up to this mark right here, I'll establish your enchantment. Auror Malfoy, please simply stand by while it takes effect. At ease, if you will."

"Right-ho." Harry did, falling to the Auror form of parade rest naturally, wand butt just so, other arm folded neatly behind his back. Except substitute the epee for the wand, of course. "Ready, sir."

"Psst! Not like that, Potter," Malfoy hissed, frowning. He struck a pose, one much more like the sorts the actual fencers used when Harry happened to catch a fleeting glimpse of a match on his telly. "Like this. Do just what I do, alright? Follow my lead."

"Hey, thanks." Harry aped Malfoy's stance promptly, and the position in which he held his thin flexible sword. Somehow, it lent him a spot more confidence. He wouldn't want to face Malfoy looking the fool, would he? "Oooh, that's better. That feels right, somehow. Really—thanks, Malfoy."

Malfoy jerked his chin at him, but not impatiently. "No problem."

The instructor was the one impatient; he cleared his throat meaningfully, glaring from one to the other of his students.

"Yes, gentleman, now, you are truly ready to proceed? No more chattering on? Then, masks down, if you will." He glanced meaningfully Harry's way. "This spell is nearly instantly effective, Auror Potter. Be on your guard, please. You will likely experience some turbulence adjusting to it."

"Sir." Malfoy snapped to, all beady-eyed focus on the instructor.

"Yessir!"Harry came to attention just as quickly, grimacing politely. "Sorry!"

"Very well." The instructor seemed satisfied at last. He consented to smile at Harry, albeit in a rather superiour fashion. "And, my dear Auror Potter, please do keep in mind for your own safety this is a very short-lived spell. You may have thirty minute bout of it, perhaps even as long as three quarters of an hour, but certainly no more. As our sessions are only twenty minutes in duration it shouldn't be a concern, but please also recall not to attempt any of what follows outside our charmed venue. The spell simply won't support that. Your body will have no idea what to do."

"Okay, alright," Harry nodded. "Can't see as why I'd want to, necessarily, but not to fret. I shan't dream of it."

"…Really, Potter?" Across from him, Malfoy smirked through his mask. "Hmmm."

A hard rap rang across Harry's unprotected forehead, right on his scar, and the instructor's soft words swiftly began the incantation. Harry looked over to Malfoy sideways, curious at that knowing drawl.

"What?" he demanded, twitching slightly as the spell took effect. "You know something I don't, Malfoy?"

"Always." Malfoy smiled at Harry again, and this time his expression was marginally even warmer and even less remotely courteous. Or mocking. A little difficult to make that out through the metal bars shielding his face, but Harry did note its overall lack of snark. He smiled in return, reflexively, feeling his excitement growing by leaps and bounds as the enchantement affected him. "Only that I've grown to enjoy it very much, Muggle fencing," Malfoy murmured, with a glance to the instructor, who had his eyes centred on a clock on the blank white walls of their practise area, counting down. Malfoy shrugged, twirling the blunted point of his sword. "And given we rather go for the same sort of sport, Potter, at least from my observations over the years, you may find yourself in a similar fix. Wishing to excel at it, you know? Just…"

"Auror Potter."

"Just?"Harry prompted, stepping into place he was directed as the instructor did a final critical inspection of his suiting and his foil. "Just what?"

"Just _remember _this, Auror Potter," the long-suffering instructor warned darkly, glaring pointedly at Harry, just as pointedly moving to stand between the two men, interrupting the quiet exchange. "Buttons always on the foils, please. Just as the posted rules state." He pointed his foil at the large notise hanging above the practice area. It seemed to grew ever bigger as he directed their attention to it, the giant letters outlined in scarlet and black. "Helms always drawn in combat. Every touch above the belt. And no moves that are not classic regulation, as per the spell. We do not tolerate unnecessary visits to the Healers, Auror Potter. Keep your distance and stay clear of anything remotely dirty. Auror Malfoy is not your enemy here; he is your coach, if you will, as he's had the greater experience and knows the ropes. This is an art, not a brawl."

"Yes, alright. Understood, loud and clear." Harry nodded, eager to get on, cocking a thumb at Malfoy. "Not that I would. He's my partner now, you know? Not planning on puncturing him."

"No, indeed," the other Auror murmured. "I should hope not."

He glanced again at Malfoy, who'd checked his own kit one last time over and was now standing the approved set of paces away, facing him full on. A whole stream of information was meanwhile sluicing intimately through Harry's brain and thence on to his entire body: feints, ripostes, footing, and so forth—truly the fruit of hundreds of hours of practice and learning. His limbs shivered and shook, taking on all the muscle memory of an accredited expert. "Er, Malfoy? Just _what_? What were you saying earlier? About a..a situation?"

"Only…well."

Harry yanked his helmet over his unruly hair, struggling a bit with the fidgetty snap-clamps on the wire cage part. The hingeing mechanism caught his fingertips, bruising them through the thin fabric of the non-slip gloves; he swore. "Bloody!"

"Careful!" Malfoy grimaced, snapping a hand up to his own face mask, swiping at it haphazardly to check his own clasps. "Just reminding you to watch yourself, Potter. That's all. It's a bit addictive, this. Might be a bit, ah…stirring. Lose yourself to it. You'll see."

"Oh." Harry, prey to arms and legs that fell into perfect positions whether he willed it or no, was a bit too busy coping with his own response to the enchantment to really examine Malfoy's decidedly knowing grin slanted his way in detail. The man looked smug, he thought. "Well, alright." It wasn't a snide smile, though, and that was all that mattered really. They were supposed to be taking this time to forge a bond of sorts, find some common ground, perhaps even create a real bond in place of their rather standoffish acquaintance. Now he'd learnt he very much liked the way Malfoy had of smiling at him, when he did smile. This Muggle sport seemed to draw those brilliant flashes to Malfoy's marbelized surface more often than not, so...it was a good thing. He was looking forward to it, 'stirring' or not. "Noted, thanks."

"Ready?" the instructor barked. "Aurors?"

"Of course, Potter. And...here we go at last."

Harry took up his opening stance like a seasoned pro. Which he essentially was at the moment—and for half an hour a scheduled session, every three days 'til the ARP was completed.

"And…begin!" the instructor shouted, dropping his extended foil straight down. "Gentlemen, go, go, go!"

Malfoy went, as directed. Harry stood stock-still, his keen eyes narrowing in on Malfoy's lightning-fast steps crabwise and forward, dancing about Harry's periphery but just out of reach of his rising sword tip.

"Anytime you like, Potter," Malfoy remarked kindly, urbane tones only slightly muffled by the mask, his feet a silent balletic blur as he danced within a long arm's range. "_En garde_!"

He lunged, a fierce grin lighting his features, the white snap of a mad grin only barely viewable through the helmet encasing his elegant skull. Harry found himself blocking the thrust instantly and expertly, his eyes gathering a deep sparkle as he truly realized what this fencing spell could do for him, a novice. It was quite brilliantly efficacious. He felt free as a bird—as a phoenix rising—and immensely alive.

Encouraged, he, too, began the dance of swords.

And Malfoy was on him again. And again. Again!

"Oh, fuck! En garde right back to you, Malfoy!" Harry gulped hastily and rapidly parried, his arm whizzing out and down around. "Watch out!" And parried again—and parried!

And they were off, one man falling back and giving ground only to lash out again and again, pressing home perfect touch after perfect touch, the other mirroring, and perhaps not nearly as perfect but terribly willing all the same, but each of them flinging themselves wholehearted into twenty minutes of fast-paced slashing and an exceedingly brilliant sweat-up.

At the end of it, they could barely support themselves, and came to rest back-to-back, panting, giggling and exclaiming exhaustedly and poking each other's ribs with mate-y elbows as they staggered off the showers ARP had thoughfully provided.

It had been, Harry reflected later as he lay groaning pleasurably in his hugely ancient claw-footed tub at Grimmauld, feeling all his muscles stretch out and deeply relax in the bath of scalding water, really a very nice time had by all. A super time, really.

He simply couldn't wait to do it again.


	5. Chapter 5

_Dear Malfoy,_

_You left me hanging for lunch today. Don't do that. I'm not chasing you down again and you know they monitor this shite. What's for dinner?_

_Irritated, hungry & curious, _

_Potter _

* * *

**_Dear Potter,_**

**_Sorry, _****_again_****_. Was in Archives, as you know. Ernie needed my Pensieve of an old case. As you _****_knew_****_, Potter, as I _****_informed_****_ you. How many times _****_must_****_ I? _**

**_Oh, never mind. Not to the point. _**

**_I have no idea. Haven't thought of it. Out or in? If latter, mine or yours? I have the better elf installed in my kitchens, though._**

**_Again apologetically,_**

**_Malfoy_**

* * *

_Dear Malfoy,_

_Fine, no problem. Sorry I was shirty. __Am__shirty. Still. Long day, far too much parchment. Starving now. Did do all my written questionnaires for you, though. You should have the copies by owl already, I'd imagine. I have yours. Never knew you were pulled into that Goblin task force mission in Moravia last year. Pretty exciting time, that. _

_Anyway, a.) __in __and b.) __yours__. And c.) __yes__, you do have the better. No argument there. Seven alright?_

_Sorry, also,_

_Potter_

* * *

**_Dear Potter,_**

**_Works. _**

**_Famished as well. _**

**_Please don't delay, then._**

**_Malfoy_**

* * *

**_Dear Potter,_**

**_Dinner was pleasant. Thank you for joining me. It's much more enjoyable to eat an excellent meal whilst conversing with a congenial companion, I find. Your cumulative knowledge base for the Cannons is really quite impressive, at least for recent years. Pity they're not one of the better teams in the League. Bit of a waste of your time, really, all things considered._**

**_See you in the morning._**

**_Pleasant dreams,_**

**_Malfoy_**

* * *

_Dear Malfoy,_

_Git. I love the Cannons, I do. Still. And same to you—have pleasant dreams. Bet you tally up scrimmage scores in your sleep, don't you? Wanker._

_Any road, goodnight, ta, toodles, see you in the morning,_

_Potter_

* * *

**_Potter, _**

**_Not hardly._**

**_And corking dreams to you as well. I hope they're all of them coloured orange._**

**_Malfoy_**

* * *

"Chief is on my arse, Malfoy," Harry burst out, erupting into his new partner's soon-to-be old office in a flurry of wildly tumbled hair and flapping coattails, "for the Winton file. I can't give the Winton file; it's not ready yet! Hide me? Please? Pretty, _pretty _please, Bott's on top?"

"What? Chief is? Potter, really."

"Please?" Harry made frantic puppy-eyes at Malfoy, who sighed heavily, shrugging and rolling his wintery grey orbs in return.

"I will not ask," he remarked firmly, setting his mouth in a thin, patient line, "no, I will not." He cocked an ink-smudged thumb to a second door, much smaller and less imposing than the regular entry one and shading into a rather wavery existence against the far wall. "What Chief wants with the Winton at this late date. Or what's been done to it to have upset him so. I will never, ever ask, Potter; I know better. There, in my lav. Go. There's a permanent privacy spell already in place. He'll never know."

"Thanks!" Harry grinned so widely he quite thought his face might split open with it. Malfoy was a real trooper, wasn't he? "Cheers, I owe you one!"

"Yes," Malfoy muttered direly behind the cascading piles of leftover case files, handed off to him by his prior-to-Potter partner Ernie, stacking up on his desk as Potter disappeared, literally, into his private toilet. He sighed, blinking distractedly at yet another form in triplicate Ernie had never bothered to fill out and submit. "You likely do."


	6. Chapter 6

_Malfoy, _

_Greek today? I crave lamb._

_Hungry,_

_Harry_

* * *

**_Potter, _**

**_Suits._**

**_Draco_**

* * *

"Er, wait,"Malfoy said, later that same day. "Hold up a moment." They were posted this day to a different instructor, yet another in the ever-rotating schedule of trust-building exercises some mad-as-a-hatter ARP underling had devised. "_I_ have to strike _him_? _Potter_, physically? As in to harm or cause pain? What purpose will _that _serve, may I ask? Preposterous!"

"Um, yeah, yes." Harry made haste to join in the protest, nodding his agreement in case the instructor missed the fact he'd no interest in a fisticuffs with Malfoy, of all people. "_No_, I mean! What he said. _I _certainly don't want to have to punch him, either, Miss Sigurdardóttir. He's supposed to be my partner, you know? Watch my back, not stab it."

"I hardly think I'd ever be stabbing it anyway, Potter," Malfoy reproved, sending Harry a minor glare. "Don't exaggerate."

Harry replied with a knowing look.

"Sod that," he snorted. "You would've, once. Not that you would now, of course. I mean, we're all over that particular crap, but hey. I wouldn't 've blamed you if you had, you know? There was a lot of very nasty business we went through." He swallowed, gazing off to one side unconfortably. "Together and, erm, singly."

"Yes," Malfoy replied mendaciously. "Yes, Potter, and the operative verb in that sentence is 'went'. As in, that's all long past, just as you've said. So, ma'am?"

He swiveled his stern grey gaze to meet the curious blue eyes of the latest, greatest instructor in the revolving-door lot of them. This one happened to be a tallish, willowy blonde Witch, on the same height and build level as Malfoy but much, much bustier, naturally, being decidely female. Likely of Nordic descent, Harry concluded, given the surname. Very striking, Harry also decided as an afterthought, and was just starting to wonder where it was the Ministry had hidden all these quite fetching instructors earlier? If he'd known they were all hanging out over in ARP department, maybe he'd have taken the time to stop in a little sooner in his Auroring career. Maybe even ask of Kings why he'd been stuck with good old Ron for so long.

It was a grand thing, wasn't it, to try out new ideas, yeah? And perhaps maybe become acquainted with new people, along the way.

"Why ever should we attack each other with bared fists?" Malfoy was busily demanding of Miss Sigurdardóttir. "I'm afraid I don't see the sense in it, sorry."

Harry peeked over that Malfoy, who was displaying a fine high colour across his sharp cheekbones. Malfoy, he thought, though by rights he should be pretty old hat to Harry's sketchy knowledge, was contrarily proving to be quite, quite new-ish, too.

"Gentleman,"the instructor cleared her throat meaningfully, but she peered closely Harry's way with gimlet blue eyes specifically trained. "Aurors, please!"

Harry didn;t notice at all; he was busy observing Malfoy.

...Course, there were also a fair amount of fetching _Aurors_ in the rank-and-file, he mused happily, his attention wandering off to enjoy the shade of Malfoy's hair. It was quite as blonde as the Nordic lady's and far more shiny. He'd always, he recalled, rather liked it. It looked soft, and touchable, really.

"Yes?" Malfoy growled impatiently. "Ma'am? Are we really going forward with this nonsensical bout?"

"_Gentlemen_, if you would but first _read_ the printed instructions given you." She nodded grimly to the sheets of stapled parchment each man clutched. "You will clearly mark that this is _thumb_ wrestling match you will be engaged in. Thumbs, my dear sirs. There will hardly be any _harm_."

"Wh-what?!" Harry exploded into instantaneous giggles of disbelief. "Thumb—_thumb _wrestling?" He snuffled happily, only attempting to hide his wide smile at the last moment as the instructor's eyes narrowed upon him. "You're pulling my leg, right? Oh, do tell me you're pulling my leg, Miss!"

"Excuse me!" Malfoy gestured impatiently, his expression arrested in shock. "What's this about now?"

"Ahem." Definitely Miss Sigurdardóttir was not particularly pleased with Harry; it was evident in her quelling stare. "I am not pulling any part of you, Auror Potter; that is Auror Malfoy's job and it is limited strictly to your thumbs. And there will be no danger whatsoever during the term of my instruction, thank you. Not unless you sprain yourselves," the instructor stated acerbically, but added under her breath, "mentally or physically. Which is entirely possible."

"Pardon."Malfoy's lips were pinched as he scanned the parchment quickly. "Pardon, but I'm not at all clear here." He frowned as he regarded it, poking a forefinger at the simple illustration some enterprising artist had sketched in. "What precisely _is _this 'thumb wrestling'? I've not ever heard of—"

"No, really, it's fine. It's nothing much, Malfoy."Harry came up close and bumped Malfoy's shoulder.

"Potter, wait—I'm in midst of sorting this mess out for us—"

"No, it's alright, mate." He patted Malfoy's forearm kindly as he struggled to subdue himself. "It's just…well, it's a little…a little strange, is all, wrestling with thumbs. A bit, erm, silly. Meant for the kiddies, really. Doesn't hurt, though." He grinned; another giggle rose up and he utterly failed at stuffing it back. "Um! Not. One. Bit."

"Auror Potter," Miss Sigurdardóttir interrupted, her tone dangerous, "if you're quite through mocking my lesson? May we proceed, please?"

"Oh, yes! Sorry!" Harry struggled manfully to keep his composure, but it was clear he was fast losing the battle. It was just...was just, thumb wrestling, of all things? Ridiculous, what? "Ngh—ngh! Mpfh!" he chortled, losing it altogether at the sight of Malfoy's mildly enraged glare, swinging wildly between Harry and their statuesque Valkyrie of an instructor. Clearly, the poor bloke felt left out.

"Potter," Malfoy edged over to him and nudged him with a meaningful elbow, hissing. "Potter, belt _up_. Put a lid on it. She's not happy with us, can't you see?"

"The fine sport of opposing thumbs in battle was developed by the Muggles, in fact. Muggle children, to be exact."

Their instructor cleared her throat very loudly and elected to carry on with providing the background data on this particular exercise, very plummy of voice all the sudden. Harry stuffed back another peal of startled laughter. She reminded him ever so much of some sort of avenging goddess, hot on their tails and ready to hand out out the what-for for their lack of suitable seriousness. Harry almost expected her to sprout a helmet with horns or maybe smite him directly with a studded shield. Instead, she folded her lips tight, clicked her heels together and snapped out:

"As you are both rather more mature than Muggle children, Aurors, or I certainly hope you are, I would _wish_ for you to approach this exercise in all seriousness and give it the honest attention it deserves," she trilled. Her accompanying stare was furious and very pointedly shared between both men, but really more aimed at Harry, who flushed bright red and gulped guiltily. Or rather, he flushed a little more brilliantly, as he was already scarlet of cheek and jowl from his nearly stifled fits of hilarity. Poor Malfoy, however, looked as though he hadn't the faintest of clues. All at sea, he was. And not at all happy about it. "As it demands as much respect as any other form of combat," Miss Sigurdardóttir concluded, tapping a foot firmly at them both. "Any. Other. Form."

"I see." Malfoy's voice was measured; respectful, of course, but with a distinct hint of dubiety lacing through. "Of...course."

"It—" Harry choked a bit helplessly, nearly overcome anew as he envisioned going thumb-to-thumb with Malfoy in place of wand-to-wand or sword-to-sword. What a huge come-down, what? Poor old Malfoy! No wonder he was so taken aback; this had to be hardly worth all his bred-in-the-bone magical know-how. More like a slap in the face! "It does? R-Respect, you say? R-Really, now. I—I hadn't thought of it that way before, sorry. Must admit."

"Yes, of couse, Auror. You doubt me?"

"Oh, no. N-No, of course not, Miss," Harry blushed atop his existing flush, until he felt as if he were one great big blot of hot-and-red in the quiet little cubical of an exercise room. Malfoy, in contrast, was all about the icy cold demeanour of the offended Pureblood.

"Hmmph! Well, for my part, this is not at all what I was expecting from our agenda today, Miss Sigurdardóttir," he cut in sharply, eyes scanning his parchment for a second time. He shook it, so that the pages rustled. "Not at all. I realize the Ministry Reorientation for Aurors programme includes a great many Muggle-themed activities as it is, almost an overwhelming array of them, but this is—this was _never _in the Muggle Studies curriculum. And I've been through the ARP several times over now and never have I ever—"

"Wait!" Harry spun to stare blankly at his partner. His jaw dropped; this was new and different and far more interesting than any old Muggle kid's game. "Malfoy? You took Muggle Studies? Since when?"

"Privately, if you must know, Potter," Malfoy replied stiffly. He met Harry's gaze levelly, never glancing away. "With a tutor. Perhaps you were unaware Miss Granger was providing lessons for hire, shortly after we all were matriculated from Hogwarts?"

"No!" Harry exclaimed, nearly hopping in happy surprise. "Hermione did? She never said a word!"

"No." Malfoy huffed, his postured stiffer yet, if possible. His smile at Harry's antics was prefunctory and nothing more than polite. "As to that, I requested she not spread it about and she was kind enough to oblige. I see she's kept her word all this time…not that it matters much these days. It's hardly a secret, Potter. Never has been."

"No, of course not," Harry said hastily, recalling his latest circumstances, being assigned an old foe as a partner. Their circumstances, actually: Malfoy was in the same ship. "Of course not." The severely ice-blonde lady frowned at him nastily when he dared sneak a glance at her. He lowered his voice to a hushed mutter, edging closer to Malfoy's flank. "And why ever would you be, Draco? Nothing to worry your head over; good on you, yeah? Enterprising. In any event, I see we've veered a little off track there. Should start paying attention now. I think our prof's about ready to take our heads off at the nub, right? She's not liking me much, I daresay."

"Indeed," huffed the woman in question, beetling her blonde brows at Harry. "_Mister_ Auror Potter. I would hardly dirty my thumbs in such a gruesome manner, thank you, as to behead you but valuable time has been lost to us, gentlemen. Perhaps forever. We shall have to exert ourselves mightily in order to make up for it."

"Ah." Harry wasn't quite sure what to say to that. 'Mighty' thumb-wrestling as a concept rather boggled him. "No..." He concentrated instead on seeming terribly apologetic and boyishly inept at her. He'd noticed before people seemed to respond to that tactic pretty well when he'd gotten himself in suds. "'Pologies, most sincerely. Um?"

"Yes, indeed. _I _completely apologetic, Miss," Malfoy stepped into the unhappy breach of protocol adroitly, inclining his head very slightly and in a quite courtly, old-fashioned way, just as Harry had begun to notice he so often did. Malfoy was sure enough the gentleman he claimed to be, at least when it came down to the wire. The Nordic goddess deigned to smile his way. Frostily, yes, but even so. All and only at Malfoy, though. "For frittering away our time together on ill-informed quibbles. I should've read the material you've given us more closely from the start, naturally. All my fault, yes."

Harry cleared his throat, hoping vaguely the lady would share some of that blanket forgiveness over and cease glaring furtively at him when his partner wasn't looking. Malfoy hurried on, affixing a charming grin on his handsome face and becoming somehow extremely appealing. "Sincerely, yes, " he purred, "_and_ we are both sorry for wasting our time here. Please, continue," he pleaded, laying it on thick and with a heavy trowel. "As I'm sure Potter here," he jerked his chin in that way he had, "wishes not to prove a hindrance to your instruction. Believe me, we are actually…ahem, we are most _eager_ to get on with this battle of—of thumbs. Do be so kind as carry on. Right, Potter?"

He laid a long narrow foot upon Harry's toes, pressing down gently. "Ahem, Potter?"

Harry jumped, stifling a scowl.

"Oh! Oh yes, yes," he gabbled, willingly enough. "Totally. Yes, sure. What Malfoy says, Miss. I'm with that. Completely."

"Very well, then. Let us begin. Sit, gentlemen. Positions!"

When they'd finally squared off, seated almost nose to nose across a tiny café table, Malfoy's hand held in Harry's loosely clasping one was far warmer than he'd ever considered it might be. And his agility with his long pale thumbs proved indeed impressive.


	7. Chapter 7

_Malfoy, _

_Dinner my house tonight, for a change. Pasta ok?_

_Harry_

* * *

**_Potter,_**

**_Fine._**

**_Malfoy_**

* * *

"Oh, gods, Ron, you should've seen his face!" Harry howled again, days later, just thinking back on it. Poor chap—and poor him as well, thinking what_ he'd_ been thinking, focused on the heavy duelling or the hand-to-hand combat or something equally painful and very oppositional, and not at all dwelling on building a partnership. And all blithely unaware the Ministry Auror Reorientation Programme had to have been designed by what must've been a boatload of certifiable, hand-holding, tie-dyed tree-huggy lunatics. "It was a bloody scream, mate. I almost died, trying not to laugh when he realized it was only thumbs. Comical!"

"What, Malfoy's?" Ron asked blandly. "Yes…actually. Prob'ly was." He glanced off, ginger brows beetling. "But, Harry…that's rather sad for him, don't you know? Feel bad, now. You likely _shouldn't _be laughing. Not so," he humped a careful shoulder, "_on_, no." He tsked, disapprovingly. "I wouldn't have known, either."

"No?"

"No." Ron drank down his pint, scowling at it all the while. "Decidedly not."

"Er, alright, sorry….though I wasn't really, not_ at_ him. More his face; there's a difference...Ah, er, come to think?" Harry tapped his best mate on the shoulder peremptorily. "D'you know, Ron?"

"Hmm?"

"Now I'm actually really _very_ curious. This programme, was our Luna ever on the Committee, mate? 'Cause that was just right up her alleyway, all of it. I can practically see her fine hand at work, having real Wizards play about with real swords and real thumbs and hardly any magic involved. To see what they'd do...how they'd manage? Or maybe your Dad's in on it, Ron. This could be him, too. Mad for Muggles, the lot of them."

"Oh, now, Harry." Ron scowled good-naturedly, flapping his hands as he waited for Tom to notice they were empty of a potable beverage. "That's not so nice of you, either. Don't go comparing _my_ dad with Luna, alright? They're nothing alike. Dad's all about the mechanics, not the 'deep inner meanings'." His voice went high and breathy with the last bit and he made air quotes, and Harry had to chuckle. He adored Luna but she was a bloody piece of work and no lie.

"Oops, again…sorry. Was just thinking, Ron."

"Meh." Ron made short work of his second pint, Tom having kindly conjured it. "Okay, then." He nodded at Harry, upper lip foamy, and wrinkled his nose up above his bubbly moustache, clearly debating. "No worries…Besides, it wasn't either of them, Harry. Know that for a fact."

"Yes?" Harry perked up. "Who, then?"

"Was my Pansy, actually. Thought it would work out, she did, mixing us all up like this, Pure and Half and so on, and I've got to admit, mate—she's spot on."

"Wha—**_what_**?" Harry nearly tumbled off his stool. "Your _Parkinson_ did this?"

Ron grinned with patent pleasure at Harry's expression..

"Yep. Think so, mate. 'Course, Hermione had to jump in too, shove in her two sickles as the resident expert, but yeah. Slytherin thinking, Harry," Ron nodded over the rim of his glass, blue eyes half-lidded."Deep shit, isn't it? There's the ticket. By the way, did you and Malfoy ever come up with something to talk about?"

"Hmm?" Harry started from his visible abstraction; Parkinson being the one responsible for thumb-wrestling had thrown him for a loop of major proportion. "Oh. Oh, yes, actually. Loads."

"Like what?"

"Um, well." Harry began to tick items off on his fingertips. "Muggle fencing, for one. He's been telling me all about it, the history. Gives me books and such. Goblins, for another. Fascinating species, almost as weird as house elves and I never knew, fancy! Ah…backgammon." He grinned happily. "Turns out we both play backgammon, what about that, and—"

"Fancy," Ron grinned, eyes narrowing in amusement. "That."

"But," Harry added triumphantly, "_not _Quidditch!"


	8. Chapter 8

_Draco, not allergic to shrimps, are you? Supper at mine, again. H_

* * *

**_Harry, _**

**_No, thank you for asking, though._**

**_Eight alright? I'll come along then unless you Owl me it's not convenient. Will bring with a bottle of white and a loaf of the decent bread (that bakery, remember? The one with the madeleines) to go with, if agreeable. My small contribution to your talented efforts._**

**_With anticipation, _**

**_Draco Malfoy_**

* * *

_Draco—Flatterer. See you then. Harry_

* * *

"Er…may I help?"

Malfoy clad in an apron with a bit of a discreet ruffle and a 'Kiss the Chef!' badge emblazoned on it tickled Harry's innards something fierce with the overwhelming urge to giggle, but curiosity was stronger.

"Sure," he said, handing over a courgette and a sharp knife, and _not_ grinning his head off, "but, Draco? Why'd you sign off like that, in your note? 'Draco _Malfoy_'. Come on, it's not like I don't know who the Draco is, arse. Only one of you bashing about _I_ know of, thank heavens. Er, here, chop this as close to paper thin as you can, please, if you want to help. I'm sautéing it with garlic for a side. Maybe add some pepper or something; don't know."

"Mm, garlic," Malfoy hummed happily. Kept his eyes on the chopping block, though, and well away from Harry's curious sideways gaze. "I do like the garlic…I, er. About that…it. My name. It's…ah?"

He fell silent and when Harry peered a little harder, his guest seemed to growing steadily more strangely ill at ease, his knuckles clenched bone-white on the knife handle, his feet shifting on the tile. Harry, for some reason, felt perhaps he shouldn't press it, his question, but then…he _was_ curious.

Draco always left him curious. Curious fit to burst. And 'better out than in', Mrs Weasley always said.

"It's not important or anything. Just...just thought to myself, oi, that's a little odd, yeah?" Harry bumped friendly elbows in passing as he leant across and around the other Wizard in his kitchen to grab a second pan, maybe on purpose, maybe not. Malfoy was certainly a larger-than-life presence there, even in his antiquely over-sized kitchen. Took up a fair amount of space, he did, all vertical. And the pristine white chef's apron set off his colouring nicely, especially as he was wearing lovely shade of royal purple shirt and very indigo denims beneath it. Very long legs, had Malfoy. Harry peeped again, concerned but not quite knowing why he should be; he only was. "But, um," he mumbled. "Whatever."

"...Ah." Malfoy's lips tightened. "It's..."

"Hmm?"

And those denims Malfoy wore, they were very well fitted. Harry had never once glimpsed the man in real Muggle casual clothing…nor wearing trainers either, for that matter. Mufti had never been so elegant, though.

He spent a useless moment wishing he were as tall and as built like a clothes-horse and all that fribble, but then shrugged and gave it up. Was never going to happen, was it?

"I…wasn't. I—look," Malfoy mumbled, eyes fixed intensely on the chopping board. "Does it even matter, what I wrote? The 'Malfoy' bit. Was just a…an oversight. Mistake, maybe. Everyone makes them; I was rushed at work. Ernie keeps after me for those files, you know?"

"Yeah?"

"Yes. And I'm. I'm more accustomed to…a sort of formal correspondence, if it's to be Owled. These constant notes back and forth aren't exactly what I'm used to, sorry. Throws me off, a little."

"Oh, oh…kay," Harry replied, agreeably. "Forget it, no fear. Specially if it makes you all funny looking, Draco. You look a picture right now, mate. And you're funny enough as it is. Makes me laugh."

"Oi, Potter!" Mock outrage suited Malfoy very well, Harry decided; he gained some colour in those pale cheeks of his and a deceptively brilliant glint in those chilly grey eyeballs.

"Oh, piss off; m'not serious." Harry nudged at his guest again, nearly causing the half-sliced courgette to skitter of the board and spray bits all over the tile. Draco sent him a fast glare as he yanked the pieces back where he'd had them, in a neat pile. "Right, moving on. Sing out right now if you want a salad along with this, Draco, because I can whip one up if I must, but we have one veg already and I'm not much for the—"

"For the veg, I know," Malfoy nodded smartly, scooping the pile of thin rounds together deftly."Green things aren't your cuppa, exactly, are they? It's fine, Potter. This is more than enough. There, finished. Thin enough for you? Want them thinner?"

"Super," Harry smiled. "No, they're perfect as is, thanks. Oh—and, hey?"

"Hmm?" Draco raised a brow as he whipped off the apron, folding it methodically and draping it over the back of a chair. "Oh, Harry?" he said, pausing mid-pat, his eyes returned to the work counter. "That pepper there, the red one. D'you want? Shall I?"

"Hey, no, rather, you want to get on with uncorking that wine you—oh, no." He noted the steady stare his guest was subjecting the poor pepper to; it was a bit intense. "Not that one." Harry flapped a dismissive hand at the pepper. "Don't bother yourself; I'll do it in a tick. The wine, though?"

"Er, the bottle of white I brought along, is that what you want next, then? Ready for a drink? Alright."

"Please."

"I could. Could use a glass, too." Malfoy nodded abruptly, pressed his ruffled hair smooth again with a quick hand and stepped away from the centre island to peer intently at the upper cabinets lining the room, scanning them as if he'd Muggle X-ray vision. "Yes, of course you will, doing all the work there. Wine is called for, as always, isn't it? When you're cooking. Right away, then. Ah, and where is it you keep your stemware tucked away, Harry?"

"Ah?" Harry humped a shoulder; the pepper was proving recalcitrant for him. "Over there, top shelf, left…yes, that's it, Draco," he replied absently, hearing Malfoy's babble with only half an ear.

He finished with the pepper and got to whisking a pat of butter and dollop of oil into the first pan heating on the burner. A careless elbow was jabbed in the proper direction as his guest cautiously opened the proper door.

"That's it, spot on, Draco, but, erm, I've only the three or four for the white and they none of them match, sorry. Not much of a gourmand, really. Hermione says I'm hopeless; should take it up as a hobby, the cooking, but..." He scowled. "Don't care, not that much. It's just I like to eat, now and again."

"Agreed. Right, found 'em." The taller Wizard fetched two goblets down with ease and gave them a quick dust-over with his wand. "Ah. And...why only the three, Harry?"

"Oh, it's." Harry shook his head, distracted by the sizzle of oil spattering. He dumped in the courgette, the pepper and a spare tomato he'd found to chop up. "Three of us, usually. Not that I have much use for that sort of shit, either. Matching things, having them about. Er…but make certain to use the front ones. The back ones I never wash."

"These, Harry?" Draco held them up for inspection. "These were suitable, I thought? Am I wrong?"

"No! Of course not!" Harry glanced over his shoulder and nodded approval. "And yes, perfect. Thanks!"

Malfoy, Harry noted, had a spot of red tingeing his high cheekbones; it _was_ rather warm in the kitchen, what with the all the boiling and bubbling going on.

Nothing unusual about that, then. Likely so did he.

"Alright, good-oh. And it's not though I'd care if they matched or not. I'm not that bad, I hope." The man was smiling at him tentatively; one might even say it was a 'shy' smile, but Harry didn't mind, not a whit. He grinned widely in return; could practically feel his face creaking with it. "Or...am I?"

It made Harry a bit giddy, it did. Having a guest over, slinging together a meal to be shared. He wasn't accustomed to the feeling yet, but it was rather a lovely one.

"Oh, gods, no!"

His house could feel too empty, sometimes. This was better.

"No, you're not. Not at all. Really, Malfoy, you're the perfect guest in every way, in fact. Very well done, couldn't ask for better. Not to worry," Harry gabbled, pleased over nothing much in particular other than it being Malfoy in his kitchen, as opposed to anyone else, slicing the veg up and searching out mis-matched stemware. Of course, his whole face felt a great deal more than mere 'flushed' but maybe that could be blamed on the heat of the cooktop. Yes, likely it could. He had a lot going on there, didn't he?

"Oh, and I meant to say earlier? It's a bit great, yes, super, actually, to have you here, eating, or you will be eating I should say, very ARP of us and—and, yes, _please_, one for me if you're pouring out. Double-quick." He waved the turner at the sautee pan, sizzling away on the hob. "M'hot. And a bit parched, now. Too close to the Aga, I think. Yeah."

"Well, take care, then. And here."

Malfoy sloshed out a generous amount of liquid, tapped the glasses with his wand to chill them, and handed Harry's over to him promptly, capturing the non-spatula-holding hand to firmly press the stem into his curling fingers and ensure it was secure. He smiled as he did it, carefully but nothing like as shy as before, and Harry shut his flapping trap long enough to grin like a loon in return.

Really, this was pretty fair, this hosting thing.

"To your good health, may it continue. And, ah, your hospitality. I mean, thanks for having me over to dine. _Again_. I wasn't, er. It's, I...wasn't expecting that, so soon again. Thought we'd eat out, you know?"

Malfoy blinked over at Harry, flapping a speaking hand at the mess.

"Bit much to have hanging over you, a guest on a week night, yes?"

"And to yours." Harry bobbled the glass in acknowledgement. "And, er, no. Not really, Draco. I'd have rather...I mean, thank you for coming. Wasn't sure…so much." He spared a glance about them, at the groceries half-unpacked all across the counter and the mess of shrimps to be cooked next, the huge pot of pasta water bubbling away on the back burner. "It's always pretty casual here, sorry. Not formal. Wasn't sure if you would even want to...well. Again."

"Of course I would," Harry was treated to a much more enthusiastic crease of cheeks and flash of teeth this go-round, all traces of Malfoy's weird prior hesitation vanished. "Eat together, work together, all that. Part of the show, isn't it? Full partners in the glory of good old ARP, right? Doing our bit, I think. And very well, too, thanks to you."

"Um." Harry gulped, knocking back an inelegant swallow of his wine. It was very nice, the vintage, but this was Malfoy, so...naturally. He blinked a bit faster when the tang of alcohol caught his throat, causing his eyes to water behind his lenses. Speaking of, they were very foggy and he couldn't see a thing. He fumbled his wine. "Gack! Sorry!" And had to cough just as suddenly, nearly spilling.

"Watch it!" Malfoy burst out, lunging and grabbing at Harry's wrist to right the stemware. "You're okay there, Harry?"

"I'm okay!" This idiotic bobble of him being a ham-handed fool with his wine glass Harry blamed instantly on the steam fogging his specs. The whole-body blush he felt was likely all due to the residual heat radiating from the cooktop; no, _definitely_. "P-Partners, yeah. Good thing, isn't it? Saving me from myself, in my own kitchen. Sorry!"

"That's alright then," Draco nodded agreeably, rertreating again. "Cheers. No harm, no foul." He nodded kindly enough, eyes going to the loaf of bread he'd toted along with him when he'd appeared promptly in Harry's Floo at eight of the clock exactly. "Now, what else can I do for you? Slice that, maybe? Lay the table?"

"Cheers! Oh, er. Sure!" Harry thankfully set his glass down and hastily returned to the business of cookery. It gave him the excuse to look to the shrimps and not to his partner. Not that he didn't _like_ looking at his partner, excepting, well, Malfoy could be quite...er, quite distracting. "Yes, but, um? Talk to me, maybe? Tell me more about that one book you were reading, the one you said liked so much. The Crosnier one, was it?"

"Sure thing."

Pleased to have diverted what felt, oddly, like a bit of a minor social crises in the making, Harry went about readying the shrimps, with his guest hovering helpfully on the perimeter, sawing away at the bread with a spell whilst nattering on about Roger Crosnier's tome on fencing. Harry quietly smirked to himself when Malfoy laid up the scrubbed-clean kitchen table without even being asked when it was time.

The dinner was super, actually. Terribly simple fare, yes, but the bread was excellent when slathered in garlic-flavoured oil and the wine exceptionally decent and Malfoy could talk up a veritable storm about all manner of topics when he forgot it wasn't polite to commandeer all the available dinner conversation for himself. In fact, Harry was still musing happily about nothing much in particular when his guest Flooed off home, hours later.

His new partner, Harry decided as he readied for bed, had been dead-on correct about some comment he'd remarked in passing. Completely off the cuff, when handing over to Harry the heaping bowl of shrimp-infested noodles. What was it now? Oh, yes: 'Dining with a companion', Malfoy had let slip, without one hint of his habitual smirk, 'is a far nicer prospect than dining alone. I daresay.'

And just as he'd gone off, Harry's partner had thrust out a ready hand out to grab at Harry's waving one without pausing a beat, enfolding Harry's fingers in a hot, sweet warmth and giving his bared forearm a fond-ish little squeeze whilst he was at it.

'Thanks again, Harry,' Malfoy had grinned, and a bit briliantly, too, same as he'd smiled when hanging about with his old Slytherin friends at the Leaky, of a Friday. "I enjoyed it, so much. Been fantastic.'

"Me, too," Harry had replied instantly. "Come again, will you? And don't be shy about it; always welcome here, mate."

It struck Harry later, as it had struck him then, and rather profoundly, though he'd not said anything more to Draco about it. That perhaps maybe, just maybe, the bloody Ministry had gained a leg up with this ARP business, after all.


	9. Chapter 9

**Harry? You there? **

**I can't find you.**

**Draco**

* * *

One afternoon Harry was walking back from Archives with his coffee and a stack of old files when things went totally dark with no warning.

When he came to, it was to find himself floating in the midst of the second largest exercise pool in the Ministry gymnasium, his one ankle tethered somehow to the tile flooring, and a fully clothed but shoeless Draco Malfoy swimming about his legs with the blade of jackknife flashing in one long pale hand.

He opened his mouth to draw breath—or maybe to shout out a warning—and Malfoy, having sliced the knot deftly, surged up ever so swiftly and clapped a warning palm over his lips before he could even. A rush of bubbles surrounded them as Malfoy used his long legs to advantage to leverage them both up, and then up again, and then they broke the surface, Harry panting and gasping, hacking and spitting out the rank taste of chlorine over his streaming shoulder.

"Here—_Harry_."

Malfoy slid the knife's keen blade through the bonds at Harry's wrists even as Harry was still frantically shaking water out of his eyes and his seal-dark hair. His specs slipped sideways off his nose and he desperately grabbed after them, shoving them up and nearly sinking under again with the motion.

"For fuck's sake, hold on," Malfoy growled nastily. "Don't thrash so, idiot."

"What?" Harry panted, slipping a bit as Malfoy shifted his grasp on him to a better hold and swiftly struck out in a fast one-armed crawl toward the edge of the pool, dragging Harry bodily along beside. "What in the fuck was tha—?"

"Keep your stupid mouth closed, damn you. You're in the pool, still." Malfoy's gaze was very dark grey and slightly bloodshot as he turned his sleeked-down head to glare frostily at Harry, a wintery grey stare that bore, and spear-straight into Harry's widening eyes, even as busy as he was with unceremoniously hauling the both of them up and over the slippery tiled lip of the Olympic sized reservoir. "Wait till I've got you out, git-for-brains. Merlin!"

"…All about?"Harry finished, when he lay back on the damp tile, blinking up his growing bewilderment at Malfoy's horrible frown and the tired lines gathered around his narrowed eyes. "I don't...Draco?"

"They sent me a puzzle," his Auror partner snarled, sitting up abruptly, all teeth set on edge and squinty steely looks about the deserted pool, biting glances that boded no good for _someone._ "A puzzle to work, after knocking you out and bloody abducting you. Gave me twenty-four hours to solve it. Or else."

"Oh," Harry remarked, somewhat blankly. "Oh, shit,_ sorry_, Draco." This was never what he thought he might expect from the happy, hippy souls apparently running ARP. He was paradoxically swamped with a huge wave of guilt, even thought he'd nothing to do with his own apparently ARP-approved kidnapping. "I'm…I'm so _sorry_."

"Don't apologize. Only took me the five."

Malfoy waved a dripping hand, and then thrust it out for Harry to take, and rose to his bare feet, pulling his partner's soggy weight up along with. His wand flashed in the periphery of Harry's vision a moment later, and it was warm again, when Harry had just been freezing his bollocks fair off.

"Thanks," Harry said, grateful to be upright, even if a little jelly-legged with it. Very grateful to have Malfoy drying him off, Wizard-fashion. "Thanks, mate."

"Not that it wasn't an entirely unpleasant five, mind you," Malfoy growled. "As I'd no idea what was going on with you for the first three. Lunch, you see. You didn't show; it's not like you. I sent a memo over. No reply. Came to see and found the note."

"Ah."

"You know, it's appallingly poorly managed of them," Malfoy carried on gravely, grim as a hanging judge, his nimble fingers clearing away the last of the thin roping dangling in tatters, the same that had held Harry's wrists together behind his back when he'd been pinned underwater and his ankles immobile. Harry shuddered at the touch. The thought of drowning was never pleasant. "Thoughtless, irresponsible, dangerous, disrespectful and completely not at all useful as any sort of exercise to establish trust between partners. _And _illogical and criminal with it." Malfoy's teeth snapped; Harry was reminded the man was deemed a very good Auror indeed, one the best in the department. "Completely so. I shall be registering a complaint officially, I think. How were you to know I'd come, eh? Bloody wankers."

Harry nodded silently in agreement, because of course Malfoy was right. It was…thoughtless. And a little cruel, too. No...more than a little.

But Draco had come; he'd come as soon as he could manage, and that was the important thing. Wasn't it?

"Er…thanks," he mumbled, at loss at what else to say to this highly furious version of Malfoy. He stomped his squelching shoes and basked in the delightful feeling of being at least a little drier and more comfortable after Malfoy's second muttered incantation. A warm breeze blew up locally, ruffling the tendrils of their still-damp hair. "_Again_, and I do mean that, Draco. For coming to get me. And…sorry, also again. You're completely right, that does seem a little—a little..."

"Extreme," Malfoy finished smartly, turning away with his chin thrust out quite pugnaciously. "Insane, even." He scowled. "Yes. My point exactly."

"Well..." Harry shrugged it off. It could've been worse, but thank Merlin it hadn't.

"And no fear, Harry," Draco added, as he firmly closed and warded the doors to the pool after them. "I'll be sure to speak to the higher-ups about it. Won't happen again, not on my watch."

"Er, okay." Harry shifted a bit closer to his partner, not even thinking about it, but only grateful for the warmth the taller man always seemed to give off, despite his contradictory exterior. "Thanks, mate."

…Neither of them found it odd when Malfoy casually set the long fingers of one hand over the thin skin of Harry's exposed wrist later at luncheon, caressing the thud of his pulse as they both doggedly chewed on their respective canteen sandwiches.

Not strange at all. It was what good partners did, yeah?


	10. Chapter 10

**_Harry, _**

**_Mother has summoned me to the Manor for the weekend. I am sorry but I'll be unable to meet you for any meals until after Sunday evening. Duty calls._**

**_I have advised Peters of this. He is fine with it._**

**_Draco_**

* * *

_Draco, _

_Alright. Wanted to try that new Greek place in SoHo, but no matter. It'll keep._

_Take care. I guess I shouldn't say'have fun'?_

_Have fun anyway,_

_Harry_

* * *

**_Harry, _**

**_No 'fun' involved, unfortunately. Estate matters, pretty much. Mum abhors meeting with the Trustees alone. Will try to cut these short but. You know how it is. Apologies, again. Would much prefer to be eating kebabs and tabouli. _**

**_Draco_**

* * *

"…Ron?" Harry poked a curious fingernail at the condensation dripping down his glass. "Ron."

"Yeah?"

"Remember the TriWizard? When they made us all go in the Lake with the Mer People and bring back—er." He shrugged uncomfortably. "Erm, you know, the ones that were most—that were, ahem, ah…_important_?"

"Mmm," Ron nodded. "Yep. Remember thinking it was downright nasty, too, that; what they did to us. Took a decade of years off my bones, that day did. Bit of nightmare, waking. Hateful, really."

"That's exactly my point," Harry continued. "But…thing is…"

"Yeah?"

"D' you have any inkling as to _why_ the ARP folks would ever think_ that_ kind of experiment should be repeated? And…and for two blokes just meant to be work partners? I mean—it's not…it's not by Hoyle, is it? Stealing away a chap's would-be mate and then randomly torturing him with thinking the other fellow's subject to imminent drowning…or worse." He scowled, bleakly, tapping the wet glass with a fingertip. "I mean, I suppose they do leave you go after a while; they'd have to, can't outright kill you to make a point but what…what if your partner never comes through? Draco said it was a puzzle based on how well he knew my habits, but…we can't all be joined at the hip, yeah? Friends, yes, and work partners; that's all logical—I get that, but…the other?"

"Nhh. Dunno, Harry," Ron nodded along as his friend talked, watching Harry's face carefully, sideways and without appearing to. "Does seem...strange."

"That's what _I_ thought. After."

Harry abruptly downed the remainder of his pint in two long continuous gulps, coming up breathless and looking none too happy afterwards.

"Horrid," he gasped, waving his empty about angrily. "And strange."

"Yeah, well," his eldest friend shrugged and drank. "Ask Pansy, then. She's the one who thought up half of it."


	11. Chapter 11

AN: As this site doesn't allow strikethrough text fomatting, I have used the symbol '/' to indicate the words Draco decided were better elided from his Owls. If you see /a phrase or word that looks like this/, it means Harry _can't_ see it to read, therefore, because Draco scribbled it out before sending.

* * *

_Draco,_

_If you don't mind my asking, how is your visit home going? Everything alright? _

_I've been shanghaied into helping with Hermione's three. No rest for the wicked, I guess you could call it. Or at least not 'Unk Harry'. _

_Best regards to your mother. _

_Harry_

* * *

**_Harry, _**

**_Well enough. Turns out Mother wishes to take Father away to Geneva; it's the real reason why I was called home. There's a sort of clinic there for sufferers of traumatic magical maladies and he's not been quite right /_**since the Dark**_/_****_ since V destroyed his wand all those years ago. Not allowed to leave the country, of course. Don't believe the Ministry will ever sanction it, either, not even for medical purposes, but apparently to keep Mother sweet I must engage legal advice and at least attempt petitioning the Wizangamot on his behalf. She won't leave off till I at least try, despite me telling her over and over being an Auror doesn't mean I have influence._**

**_In any event, it's tiring. Your Saturday was likely much more enjoyable than mine, even with ankle-biters abounding. _**

**_Maybe I'll be able to return early enough that we could grab drinks tomorrow evening? _**

**_Draco_**

* * *

_Draco, _

_Yes. Sounds good. Owl me when you're back in town._

_Take care, _

_Harry_

* * *

_Draco, _

_So sorry, but I don't think I'm able to make the Leaky later. I'm at the Burrow presently with the whole family here, even Charlie, plus Hermione, Justin, and their little gang, and Mum Weasley's not letting me out of her sight 'til I consume three pounds at least of roasted joint, two of mash and several heaping servings of blackberry crumble. And my peas. It's always my pease with Mum Weasley. Be home again far too late to be up for much of anything, again __sorry__. Would've been nice to see you, not that I won't be seeing you bright and early tomorrow morning, right? For coffee._

_Anyway. Try to grin and bear it, all my sympathies are with you._

_Harry_

_PS. Was thinking. Want me to put in a good word with Kingsley? Might ease your situation. H _

* * *

**_Harry, _**

**_It's alright. Sorry for mentioning the situation at all. /_**Should have known you'd be too busy and have your own /shite/ family to worry about**_./ You're clearly engaged enough already. So, _****_not_****_ to worry, please. _****_Not _****_making any /_**extra**_/ demands on your time, alright? All ticking over perfectly well here; I have it in hand. Don't think any more of it. _**

**_/_**As for the other? Yes, if you would, with the Minister. I'd appreciate it. Might help**_./_**

**_Thanks again for /_**thinking of me at all**_/_****_ writing and I'll see you tomorrow morning instead? _**

**_Sleep well, pleasant dreams._**

**_Draco_**

**_PS: No need to speak to the Minister on my behalf. Malfoys are accustomed to making our own way and it's not right to ask you to use your influence, not for this. Though I very much appreciate that you've offered it. _****_Very _****_much. Thanks again, D_**

* * *

"Harry?" Ron jiggled Harry's elbow in the cafeteria's straggly lunch line on a crowded, rain-lousy Monday noontime. "Where's your faithful sidekick today?"

"Oh—hey!"Harry jostled about with his tray, craning his neck to see where his mate was looming large behind him, ginger hair clashing beautifully with the scarlet attire they both wore. "Draco? He's just gone down the Minister's office, actually; had a last moment appointment with old Kingsley. What's up? Want to join me?"

"Sure. Nice to catch you up alone, Harry. For once." Ron's friendly face pulled into a set of uneasy lines; his honest blue eyes went a bit shifty. "We can, er…we can chat, yeah. Catch ourselves up, okay?"

"Erm…yeah, okay?"Harry echoed weakly, not liking the sound of that, quite. "Super."

They pushed on through, obtaining steamy cups of darkly stewed Ministry tea and their assorted luncheons, and then seized upon a small table somewhat apart from the others.

"Harry," his friend said thickly, lips stretched 'round the crusty remains of a mouthful of sandwich a few minutes into their shared bout of mastication. "Got something on my mind, mate." He swallowed and waved a hand, swigging tea with the other. "To say to you, yeah?"

Harry twitched a cautious eyebrow at him over the barely touched half of his own sandwich. "Mmh?"

"Harry, Pansy's has been asking and asking of me, nattering on to no end over it. She wants to know—um, and me, too, Harry, naturally; we both do. Wants to know, ah…er, what's up exactly with you and Malfoy lately? You two have something on the side I've not heard about yet?"

"What? No!" Harry flushed and froze, carefully lowering his tuna salad on rye and swallowing hard. "Gods, no, nothing like that." He turned a set of wide green eyes to meet Ron's squinty ones. "We're just _friends_, Ron. Mates—partners. Aurors together, all that rot. But, er…why? And why would _she_ of all people want to know about…about him and me, anyway? What's it to Parkinson?"

"She's _his_ friend, remember? Probably his best one, even." Ron humped a shoulder haphazardly and kept his eyes trained on his pickle. "And, I dunno, but she seems to think your new pal Malfoy's been acting a little strange lately. Jumpy like. Twitchy, weird and…uh, more weird. Not himself, like."

"Yeah?" Harry flinched and suddenly found his tuna salad sandwich utterly fascinating. "You don't say."

"_I_ don't, mate; she does, and she's the one who knows Malfoy best, of course. Says he's weird. Thinks you might have a little something to do with that, Harry." Ron raised his chin and stared his pal straight in the eyes. "So…do you? _Are_ you?"

"I…" Harry's eyelashes fell. "…Maybe."

Ron's face went stern. He eyed Harry minatorially and all but shook an accusing forefinger at him.

"You know? I'm your best friend for a reason, Harry. I see… things, things about you, mate, all manner of them. Things you don't even realize, maybe? And you're awfully twitchy, lately, just like Malfoy is, poor sod, and don't say you aren't, either, 'cause it's plain as the nose on _my_ face to see, if a bloke's looking. _So_."

"Um." Harry did twitch, shifting uneasily on his seat. And felt highly suggestible, after. Felt as well the beginnings of an irritable scowl growing as he finally met his friend's level stare. "Um. So?"

"So." Ron took pity, blinking at him once before glancing off into the distance. He waved the other half sandwich he was clutching in an expansive, all-accepting swoop. "If there's…if there's something going on, you _can_ say, you know? You can tell me. I won't mind it. That's all. That's all this is—nothing more, Harry."

"…No?" Harry replied, faintly, his tuna forgotten. He stared down at it, seeing nothing. His lips twitched. "Nothing, eh? Well. That's…that's good. Ron. I mean, that _is _good…yeah?"

"No, nothing," Ron replied firmly, and handed Harry a wide, relieved grin. "And, ah, yeah. It is. S'alright, really, all of it—the whatever. Thing is…the thing _is_, would like to see you happy, Harry." His cheeks took on a brilliant scarlet hue for a second before the sudden flush faded. "And? And, ahem, er… don't much care how, don't much care why, either, really, as long as…as long as you're _truly_ happy. All right?"

"…All right." Harry sighed, and suddenly his tuna-on-rye seemed to be the very best food available on the planet, the way he dove in to it. "Thanks," he mumbled, cramming in a stray piece of mayonnaised lettuce with a will. "Ron."

"Right on, then." His friend gave him an enthusiatic clap straight across his hunched shoulder blades, sending a cascade of crust crumbs down the front of Harry's Auror robes.

"Oi!"

"Think nothing of it, eh? Any time, Harry. Glad we had this little chat, mate."


	12. Chapter 12

**Auror H. Potter, **

**Please report promptly and immediately to the Office of the Minister of Magic. **

**Sincerely, **

**Caiaphas M. Caerphilly, Asst. Sec'y., OMM**

* * *

"You may wonder why I've called you in?" Kingsley was looking very grave indeed, and Harry tensed instantly.

"What is it, sir?" he demanded, springing up excitedly from his chair to pace in tight circles on the Minister's very nice carpet. "Is it Death Eaters, sir? Or those little Neo-wankers from Birmingham way? I was so certain there were loose ends yet from that business—"

"No, Harry." Kingsley waved a hand at him. "No, that's not it. Have a seat again, will you? It's about your…partner, actually."

"Er…excuse me, sir?" Harry blinked at his old friend's kindly expression, instantly nonplussed.

"Auror Malfoy. Draco Malfoy."

"What about Malfoy, Kingsley? That business with his dad, you mean, and going off to Switzerland? Because I don't see the harm in it, not at all; the old bastard's not even got a wand to wave now—"

"No, Harry." The Minister's voice overrode Harry's babble with a firm rolling stomp; Harry shut it abruptly, his eyebrows winging a'loft in surprise. "Not that either. That's been dealt with. I've already dropped a wee word in our Head Probationary Wizard's ear. It's Auror Malfoy himself, Harry—you must go find him. Track him down."

"…Find him?"

"He's missing, Harry." The Minister fluttered larger-than-life fingers casually in the calm cool air of his opulent office, as if he were just mentioning the lovely weather or that it was near elevensies and would Harry care for a spot of tea? "Dead gone, this morning. Vanished as if he'd never existed; never reported in. He's not been absent or tardy once these past seven years; that's not like him. So, logically…he's missing."

"But...but I saw him for coffee!" Harry gasped, bounding up again. "He can't just have done a runner, Kingsley—he was in the lift with me! Not possible—"

"He never made it to his desk, Harry," the Minister replied staidly. "Now, it's like this. He's _your_ partner, so you've first crack at it, before I alert Williams and set a team on it. Go out and find him, son."

"I—I," Harry stuttered, already at the door. "Yes, okay—on it, sir. You can rely on me."

"Good lad," the Minister smiled. "Best of luck, then."

"Thank you, Kingsley! Cheers!" Harry threw behind him, already clattering away in a furious bustle. He was up the lift and darting madly, halfway across the great tiled floor to the street-side access office before it struck him.

Walloped him sideways and gasping, this coincidence that wasn't a coincidence at all.

"…Those buggering buggers! Those bloody, scum-sucking, kidnap-happy ARP arseholes!" he roared aloud, instantly creating a minor and nasty silence in the Atrium. "They did this bloody fucking _on purpose_, didn't they? I'm going to murder that twat Parkinson, **I am**!"


	13. Chapter 13

"…No, alright, not here then," Harry muttered to himself, trotting down the Malfoy's intricately pebbled driveway. "Not there either."

Malfoy hadn't been at his flat in Town, either—nor anywhere in the Ministry proper, nor the Leaky, nor had he been sighted on Diagon. Harry was an Auror and Aurors were thorough; he'd go after Parkinson _after_ he'd checked all the obvious places. _Then_ he'd hex the wicked wench blind, just because, Ron's girl or no.

"Where next, where _next_? Come on, Potter, get your game face on!"

* * *

"No, Harry, dear, we haven't." Professor McGonagall shook her tartan hat sadly. "I'm so sorry, but I'll be sure to alert you if he does."

"Yes, ma'am, please, ma'am. If you would," Harry replied earnestly. "And now, if you'll excuse me? I have—I must. Well…I need to. Ah."

"Of course. Happy, er…hunting, Harry."

* * *

"Roooon."

Harry remembered it all too well, this being horribly puzzled, this awful feeling of being left stranded in the dark when everyone else could see so clearly. Wasn't fair, was it?

He didn't much care for it, no.

It had been just another usual Friday-after-work and Draco was situated just across the way, a pint merrily clutched in his long-fingered paw. He'd be joining Ron and Harry in a matter of moments. Shortly; just as soon as Zabini from Finance finished updating him on the latest Auld Slytherin's Club's going's on: fantasy Quidditch League odds bets and such. Who was shagging whom in which broom closets and what loos and of course the Archives, openly or no. Who had lost or gained a tidy bundle in the recent Ergon-Aero-Dynamic Brooms stock scandal. Whether 'that' rumour or 'this' gossip held a scrap of truth and whether there was a dare to be had in it.

"Rooooon?"

Malfoy looked to be pretty well chuffed, laughing with his friends. Without Harry.

"Yeah, what're you on about now, Harry?"

Not that he and Draco didn't always have a pretty fair time together too, because they did. They really did.

Flashes of images danced before Harry's bleary eyes, tiny vignettes floating free before the sea of jabbering, wassailing, multi-hued Ministry robes: Draco leaping forward, all in pristine tight-white excepting the dark perspiration stains trailing down his neatly suited ribcage, lunging with blunted sword tip to touch at Harry's heart, eyes dancing, brilliant as platinum fire, and the muted words on the lips behind the wire mask were surely 'There! I have you now, Potter! Touche!'

Draco, in his own non-frilly apron, all in white-on-white again, flour dusting cotton duck, gently nudging eager elves aside to knead at pastry in his own ridiculously well-fitted out kitchen, fingers nimble on the sweet dough, eyes intent on pressing in currents and dropping scant spoonfuls of preserve just so.

The same hands at avid battle, thumb as master-and-commander, feinting left, dodging right, never leaving go.

Fingers, pale, cradling two giant cups of chic 'to-go beverage' every single morning for weeks now, without fail.

"Mate?"

"Ron." Harry swallowed with difficulty and it wasn't only the sip of beer suddenly sliding wrong-way down his tight throat. "Ron, what's the Ministry stance on…on employee relations? Um…_intimate _employee relations."

"Eh?" Blue eyes swiveled to examine Harry for a quite intense moment; he felt stripped to the bone by St Mungo's best Forensics for a second. Then the moment was over and gone again, and Ron Weasley, Auror, was only good old Ron again, Harry's best friend for ages, happily lapping up his lager."Hmm. What, you mean like shagging, hooking up, that sort?"

"Hmm." Harry blinked warily. He was a little afraid to nod. Nodding would mean he meant where he was going, theoretically; where he and Draco might be going, and he wasn't positive that was the best idea.

Yet.

"Nepotism, mate," Ron shrugged. "Ministry would be crap without it."

* * *

And Harry's first and only round of ARP's almost through and it's been going swimmingly, all of it, excepting now he's gone and lost his partner. And that's not on and he won't bloody well stand for it.

"Potter, why _are _you in my office, exactly? Spit it out, do, the reason. I've a special luncheon rendezvous planned for today and you're quite cutting into my precious primp time."

Harry glared sternly at the very attractive, pug-nosed, bob-haired Witch who had his best mate happily enthralled by ginger-and-curlies. His mate Weasley was pussywhipped to here and gone and he damned well liked it, the prat! Gods, but the world was a funny old place, sometimes.

He cleared his throat loudly and firmly to begin, in a way which he hoped conveyed the fact that he was deathly serious. This was no social drop-by, this.

"Look, Parkinson—oh, and when are you ever making poor Ron a legal man, by the bye? Mum Weasley won't lay off me; seems to think _I_ can do something or say something to you two—or, or, well, what_eve_r! That's _not_ what I'm here for. I'm here because I need to know where Draco might be. Or what you stupid ARP-heads have done with him, rather. Because clearly he didn't go willingly. He'd never!"

"Of course he didn't go willingly, Potter," Parkinson smirked sweetly. "I had to Stun him. His face was the veriest picture, too. When he saw who it was, that is. Though I do think he must be sadly slipping, what with all this time off active duty. The old Draco would've never have let me get anywhere near him, not like that. Shameful."

"_Stun_ him?" Harry growled, starting up out of the chair he'd summarily plopped his arse in upon barging in unannounced."Why, you little—"

"Language, Potter," Parkinson tutted, ticking a red-painted fingernail back and forth beneath Harry's nose like a metronome. "And it didn't hurt him in the least, so don't fret. I'd never harm the dear arse; it was only that he wouldn't cooperate, stubborn bastard. All dithered to bits-and-pieces over _you_, instead, which I s'pose is perfectly natural, seeing as how he feels about you—but, such a huge fuss he put up when we arrived, Lovegood and I, even though he knows we always arrange for something along these lines during the ARP programme and nobody's ever the worse for it."

"..._Me_? What, now?"

"It's only a test, nothing more. Indeed, and you've already had yours, Potter, so naturally it's his turn. Should've expected it, I'd think. Though you wouldn't, naturally, having just only ever had Ron for your partner, all this time—and our relationship's none of _your _business, Potter, nor Mum Weasley's, so kindly keep your pokey nose off out, thanks—and so, _yes._ It_ is_. It is that fateful day at last."

"...Day?"

"Time to show us your true mettle, Potter. Sort out where we've put him and you're both in business again, fully active Aurors as of this coming week, officially sanctioned by ARP."

"But—hey—oooh! Still, wait, Pansy!"

Harry, of course, gallantly attempted to stick to his point in a loud insistent mumble all the way through the deluge of chatter, but found himself never quite succeeding in shoving a single word in edgewise till Parkinson at last herself consented to cease her incessant yabbering, lounging back in her cushy chair in a bit of an antagonistic manner and smoothing down her quite tiny skirting over a shapely kneecap, dark eyes fixed on him.

"Wait—hold up—how _he_ 'feels'?" Harry stammered, flushing miserably under the weight of her gaze. "What does that even mea—? Fe-fe-feels?"

"Feels," Parkinson said firmly. "Draco feels. Merlin, Potter."

No, it was not only her exceedingly miniaturized skirt but also the nearly diaphanous robe she wore over Parkinson was smoothing down with her pointy fingernails; a quite provocative kit no doubt for popped on for good old Ron's benefit. Ron, who was definitely getting some from his Slytherin princess; in a oddly circular fashion this helped re-focus Harry's attention on himself again, stuck in his current ARP-engineered state of not even having his own Slytherin available.

"Feels?" he sqwawked, at a loss to wrap his head around 'feels'. As in it was terrifying, the idea, and strangely what he wanted, and that was a thing he couldn't simply come out and say aloud, ever. He gawped at the girl who'd embraced Muggleness (and Ron Weasley) with an awful vengeance, who was still as Pureblood as any, and who'd even seemed contrarily a wee bit fond of Harry all these recent years despite it. "You're seriously saying _he_ has 'feels'...for me? _Draco_ does?"

"Potter," Parkinson snorted in patent disbelief over him. "Potter, I knew you'd been existing under that emotional boulder of yours for ages now, darling, but that's just plain ridiculous. Of course he does; he's completely smitten with you. Nearly burst a blood vessel when we snatched you."

"When you...? When you snatched me? But—but—eh? Oh, damn! Seriously? Was that what that was all about, with me stuck in the pool that one time, just for you ARPs to wind him up? That's cruel, sod it! You do know Draco was completely narked after, breathing fire and brimstone; you do realize that? Lucky he didn't come hex you all, stupid ARP people, and you, too, Parkinson—you deserved it!"

Parkinson heaved a huffing sigh, the one of a sorely tried Witch whose limits of patience had been worn thin as her cobwebby silk stockings.

"Of course it was us; we needed an accurate measure of his committment levels—and he was, too, I'm sure. Fiery sort. Lives up to his name when he's angry and despises having tricks of any sort pulled on him, poor sensitive old clod. Though he'd have had to catch us up first to to hex us and that's not likely, no. We in ARP Division aren't nearly as slow on the uptake as you lumbering Auror-types."

"Er...nurr?" Harry's jaw swung low. "Lumb—aren't you even sorry? At least a little? And where the fuck _is_ he, for fuck's sake? That's what _I_ need to know, Pansy. Where've you put him? I need him back!"

"Hmmm," Parkinson waved a manicured claw at him. "Sorry. Can't just go and tell you that, Potter. Got to work for it, that's the ticket. Find him by your own litle self, there's a pet."

"Pet! I'm not your bloody _pet_, Parkinson! And neither is Draco!"

"But poor darling dear Draco; what a pity, don't you think? It's such an excess strain on him, I know, given how he_ feels_, and what with the waiting and waiting on you, and you never quite sorting it out, but…well, that _is_ how the muffin disintegrates, isn't it? The something-something crumbles? Or whatever it is you Muggle types say, but what I mean is, you need to stay on task, don't you. If you want him back. Right, Potter? So, I'm late enough already; I've a date, cheers on that, and you should run along now—do shoo!"

Harry's visitor's chair jumped up on all four legs, took a sudden skitter sideways-and-backwards and then backpeddled straight the hell out of Parkinson's office, taking a still-protesting Harry right along with it.

"Eh?!" he croaked, faced with a firmly shut blank of a door, labelled discreetly in gold lettering: 'P. Parkinson, Logistics, ARP Division'. "Eh? Wait—**wait**, you can't just! Parkinson! Parkinson, let me in! Open. Up. Your. Damned. Door!"

Fifteen minutes straight of fulminating, and of hexing the stubbornly warded entry until he was literally blue from breathlessness went a long way towards convincing Harry that, first, Witch Parkinson was not opening her office door again any time in this century, least not for him, and, second, he needed to think. Very hard, and very soon.

...No. What he really required was a drink, a strong one, to settle his frazzled nerves, and a trusted old mate to help him find a few answers.

* * *

_Ron,_

_Leaky, now, please? URGENT, mate._

_Harry_

* * *

"Ron," he said plainly, feeling no compunction whatsoever, because this was not slander, this was truth. "Mate, your bloody sodding Slytherin girlfriend's a bloody sodding interfering nuis—"

"Don't say it, Harry, old mate." Ron grinned. But his gaze was blued-steel across the space of the polished planking table and his lips twitched mysteriously. "Don't even go there, my man." He hefted his glass and stared dreamy-eyed off into the middle distance. "I know she is, all right, and it's all good, believe me." He grinned smugly back at a goggly-eyed Harry, with the air of a man well satisfied in life. "Now, what's your problem? I can't be drinking my way through lunch break, Harry. Ernie'll kill me if I'm gone too long and Pansy's already fit to be tied; we're to meet up in less than ten. What's the matter, old chap? Got more bees in your bonnet?"

"ARP's got Draco," Harry admitted miserably, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the bustle of all-coloured Ministry robes bolting non-canteen food down their many craws in a collective hurry. "He's been snatched. And I have to find him and free him."

He sank his head into his cupped hands, elbowing his pint away. He didn't even want it, his drink—and couldn't afford it if he needed to keep a clear head and track down his partner.

"Ah."

"Thing is, I don't know where to even look, next. Been all the obvious places; he's not there, no sign of him. Never did this before, Ron, but you have, right? You have to help me!"

"Ah." Ron bobbed his chin once, knowingly, and wiped a smear of foam off it with the back of his hand. "Ooooh, I do see, yes, Harry. Yep, I remember. The final test, is it?"

"Yeah." Harry humped a shoulder, miserable, and not afraid to show it. Not to Ron, at least. Good old Ron. "I suppose so, but how do I know? Talking to Parkinson's like talking to a steel trap, Ron. Can't get a thing out of her; I just know I have to find him and he's probably already been thinking for hours now I don't even care he's been taken, or even noticed him gone—gods, I fucking hate this!"

"No, he won't, mate, and I'm sure he isn't." Harry's old partner gave him a bracing nudge in the ribs. "He's got every faith in you. He knows you're coming for him, too, I'm certain of it. You just have to—"

"Actually _arrive_, yes," Harry burst out, flailing a helpless hand about. "So help me, Ron! How do I even do that? What am I supposed to be doing here, with nothing to go on? What does bloody ARP _want_ me to do?"

Ron cleared his throat carefully and set down his glass neatly, square in the wet ring on the table from whence he'd taken it up.

"Um…_think_. Harry, ARP wants you to think, pretty much. About all you know about him, all you've learnt lately…and maybe, too, think about what you know about _you_, Harry. That's…Well, that's pretty much all there is to it. It's not hard, really."

"…Huh?"

"I mean, it's sort of amazingly simple. Simple but complex, like. Look, what's important about your relationship, Harry? What d'you feel first when you think of Malfoy? What's he like—where are his favourite places, his important places. His hobbies, his interests, maybe? And what do you two share, eh? What…what is it that draws you together, mate? That sort of thing. Get me? Simple. Look for where your lines cross, Harry; your, er, um, 'circles', as Pans calls 'em. Confluence. That's all there is to it."

"Ohh…oh. _Oh_." Harry sat straight up abruptly, roused out his slump. "...Oh!"

"D'you see, now?"

"I…think so." Harry nodded slowly. "Yes, I think I do. Thanks a million, Ron; you're the best."

"Right." Ron chuckled wryly, knocking back the last of his beer. "Course I am, Harry. Right, brill, you're all set, I think, so I'm out of here. Have to beat some feet, double-quick-time. Pansy's holding a table for us over at that really toney Frenchy place on Peculiar and I'll be damned if I'm not getting something good 'n' hot out of this, Harry—and I don't mean the buggering quiche pie! See you later—oh, and ta for the pint, man. Owe you one."

"Ron? That's it?! Wait, Ron—oh, bugger!"


	14. Chapter 14

Think, right?

Harry could manage that; he was part-Slytherin himself, in a weird way. So, yes, even in circles, confluential ones, if need be.

"Hmm...mine was in the Ministry, in the gym pool, and clearly ARP was thinking the old TriWizard challenges, or something like, so…dangerous. Could be dangerous. But I was safe enough and wouldn't have drowned; not even Parkinson would've let me drown in gym pool, she'd catch so much strife for it. Ron would kill her, and so would Draco—ah…hmmm. Parkinson, Parkinson, you slag, what do _you _know _I_ don't? He's not been to the Manor so that leaves out the dungeons there; he's not at Hogwart's, which means no Astronomy Tower and not down Hagrid's, either, nor the Shack…where, where, damn it all?"

Think.

_Think, Harry._

Harry paced the remodeled entryway of Grimmauld, wearing a groove in his hallway runner. Not knowing where else to do it, he'd retreated to the Ancient House of Black (and also Potter) to ruminate.

And he thought aloud, as there was no one there to hear him babble away to himself. Besides, it had worked before, this methodical outburst of raw thought, with Hermione and Ron…and then when he was left alone, as he was now.

"Not…it's not anywhere Muggle, I don't think. He likes the food and the music and all and even some of their clothes, but not—not enough so one could set him adrift in Harrod's and abandon him there with a clear conscience. Harrod's _is_ dangerous, yeah, but not like that. Parkinson would never see it that way in any case; she likes the shopping, silly bint...hmmm. Maybe...just p'raps, the fencing lessons? They'd drop him off over at the arena? But how would that come into it? Makes as much sense as bloody thumb-wrestling court does…_no_. None of that, then. But, but...duelling, in general? They're having him fight? Fight someone, for my sake? But he's not been in the Ministry; he's not on any assignment—can't be, not without me, so…that's out. Completely out, damn it!"

The Ancient House of Black (and Potter) only creaked at him. With the old Witch's portrait long since gone from the front hall, it was a kindly enough creaking, actually, but no help to Harry in any real sense.

It only felt like he did: a bit lonely.

"...And duelling with wands?" Harry snorted to himself, stomping. "But that's Hogwart's again and McGonagall assured me. Flying? No. No, can't stay on a broom that long if he's maybe unconscious and he'd have turned straight about and flown somewhere sensible if he was awake. And Quidditch is out; not practical. No…**Fuck**! Why can't I just _think_? This has to be simple enough, somehow. Ron swore it was simple, didn't he? I'm just not looking at it from the proper angle, I know it!"

Lonely. Harry knew all about 'lonely'. The thought of being by himself sent a pang through him. But it had changed for the better, hadn't it? Aurors had partners because partners worked better than singletons: more efficient, effective, safer…happier in their work. And two could join their magic when needed, just as two could bend their minds to solve a pressing problem all the quicker. But until Harry had his Draco—er, _partner _found and safely secured, he _was_ alone…and _not _liking it.

"Right, right—think, Harry, old man—**_think_**! Think like a Slytherin, think like Parkinson would, so a _female_ Slytherin! And Luna, as well, as she's batshit crazy so it's absolutely insane, whatever it is they've come up with, I know it. Dangerous, deep...and crazy like a fox, then. But still…"

He tapped his chin, pacing in ever-smaller circles.

"Something to do with me…something to do with him…and we both know it or know of it, but? But, yes! Like TriWizard, yes, okay, but not either. Same scale, maybe…same degree. It's big, then...an event? And it's important…it matters, somehow, the place where he is. To me, too. It's a little uncomfortable but not too, too dangerous, 'cause they can't exactly…and I…and he—he and me and, oh, Merlin! Where we ever? _Met_, maybe? First time? No—Harry, you git, _not _Diagon, can't be Diagon; you've already been there, so _not_ Madame Maulkin's shop! But where else…where could he be? Where we've been, together, the two of us? Think, think, _thi_—not! Not the… bloody…sodding train sta—tion…? The Express? Huh..._no_! No, couldn't be…but could it? Platform Nine and Three Quarters?"

Harry halted at last, eyes huge and very dark green round expanded pupils, gazing blankly up the rise of the elderly stairwell, his mind completely centred on one singular _Draco Malfoy_. Malfoy, Draco Lucius: Auror, partner, old schoolmate, older enemy before that...and when had that all happened? Exactly? The very beginning of it?

He missed him now, the Auror, his partner; flat out missed him. They'd not had their usual lunch together this day, morning coffee had been hurried at best, the lift ride too short. Last weekend had been a dead loss as well…oh, yes, Harry missed him. No, was missing him, actively. Pining for the chance to stare at him when it seemed as if he wouldn't notice. Grabbing the opportunity to admire his svelte form at fencing, or sigh silently over the winsome way he clamped his pink tongue between his front teeth when they were practicing at their thumb wrestling for ARP.

…Which was really just an excuse to hold hands…really, it was.

"King's…King's Cross _Station_? _Couldn't_ be!"

He _missed_ him, Harry did. He wasn't quite all there without_ him_. Never would be, really. And it had all begun so many, many years ago—not so much at the robes shop but later, when Draco had wished for Harry to…to be his friend. Had demanded it of him, and Harry had made a choice; he'd felt he'd had to, he _must_. Not that he regretted it, but...it had both begun and then...it had also ended, sadly. Between them, all those lost years. Stillborn in its conception.

It was. It was rather horribly depressing.

It took a moment's space, but Harry brightened. He even stood taller, his hands fisting eagerly at his sides.

But…weren't train stations places where people could start over again, in a way? A bit? Maybe not change every single item but enough? Hadn't Dumbledore…?

Of course he had! And Luna—Luna knew it, or at least had an inkling about what had happened to Harry there, even if Parkinson didn't. Yes! **YES**!

Harry felt like belting out a whoop of exultation but there was just enough doubt, yet, that he didn't. A niggle, a tendril of dis-ease climbing his brilliant idea, ready to tear it to pieces. It was premature—he didn't know; this could be a dead-end. He needed to _see_, that's what—he needed to see for himself.

"…Or could it...not?"

No, he needed to go, was what!

And in a hurry; Draco was waiting for him!

Harry stood stock still and turned on his heel, effortlessly flowing into an easy Apparate: the will, the way, the wish of his heart.

_Find Draco_, he thought, all his brain focused on that one exceptionally important thing he must do, through all the talking, the talking up of ideas and the casting them aside—no!

And he was again jabbering all the way through Apparate, barely even taking note of his own babbling voice as the world's edge parted and whirled about him, leaving his head spinning in the vortex.

"_Would _they even do that?" he asked of the slippery Nought dispairingly.

"Bugger this shit for a fucking lark, Parkinson!" he shouted out at the Nothingness as it passed, tumbling his hair every which way, angry as anything, mad as a hornet. "Just you wait till I wrap my hands 'round your scrawny little neck, alright? Merlin! Only one way to find out, yeah."

"Oh, Merlin," he muttered again, but quietly, stumbling into his landing as he whirled into the Station that had finally, ultimately, affected his entire life, and only barely finding his feet on the slippery polished tile and wrestling them into correct position for a fast run forward. "Oh, no. Draco?"

He must be ready, Harry was sure of it; who knew what he'd find there? A Draco hexed and covered in boils? A Draco stuck in a huge white-on-white expanse, trapped with a eerily long-dead Headmaster? And what if that Thing, that horrible Voldemort-infant thing were still present—**No**!

_(–__No-no-no)_

"Draco!"

Harry's mind squirmed away from the vision, even as he twisted his neck wildly about, eyes alert and searching for a sign of Malfoy, just one sign.

Not even the freaky, arse-backwards loonies in ARP would consider sending Draco to a proper visit of Voldemort's squirrley end as appropr—**just no**!

"Please, alright? Just let this be the right thing, will you? Draco, where are you?"

But he was consumed by a sinking feeling, one that taunted him mercilessly with mayhap being too late, and too slow—and just simply too dense without his quick-witted partner at his side. How ever had Draco felt, upon discovering Harry Potter trapped underwater? How had he felt, knowing it was all up to him to prevent a horrible, terrible accident? Oh-gods!

"Okay—alright!?" Harry pleaded of nothing and no-one actually present, excepting maybe his memories of his old Headmaster. "Draco, answer me!"

"Chrissake, I'm sorry, alright? But just this once, please,_ please," _he begged, maybe sobbing a bit, maybe not, and it was silly, but he couldn't seem to find the inner wherewithal to shut up. It was better to shout aloud, to cry out. To ask of the world at large, and at least hear himself asking, for once.

"I can't keep him waiting, no, not any longer. I just can't! _Please_."


	15. Chapter 15

"...Harry?"

King's Cross Station, Platform 9 ¾'s, was deserted of Wizarding folk...save one. There was no one there at all excepting a lone figure of a man, lounging about forlornly, spine propped up against a supporting piller, his long hands tucked up his Auror's robe sleeves.

"Harry."

Malfoy's expression was a bit difficult to read across the distance, even as the two Aurors shortened it quickly, striding towards one another at a fast clip.

"Draco?!" Harry shouted out urgently, although he could see who it was. Thank Merlin! "Is it you?"

"Oh, it is. Brilliant." And then they were face to face, at last. Mission accomplished.

"_Harry._" Harry saw thin pink lips twist before the usual composed Malfoy mask fell like a curtain. "Oh, well done."

"You're okay? Not hurt?"

"I'm dandy, really. Just...huh!" Draco shrugged nonchalantly, waggling his blond brows. "Couldn't get out, you see? Stuck here. Nothing worked, not Apparate, not anything. Really, really frustrating, it was. And I'm starved. Have we gone and missed luncheon?"

"Yes, sorry," Harry sighed up at him, eyes wide and wondering, "I'm so sorry."

Draco laughed, a startled sort of sound. "Really, Potter? You're sorry I'm hungry? How nice of you."

"Berk! No!" Intently, Harry took a moment to scan every inch of his partner, from polished boot-tips to perfectly arranged hair, checking him all over for stray boils or imprints of hexes or black eyes and the like. But he was perfectly fit, as always. "Well, yes, but it's 'sorry I was so late coming for you', Draco. Don't be an arse."

"Mmm, no. Not so bad, really, waiting," Draco demurred, clearing his throat and stepping in reverse neatly, introducing a little distance between them. "Was five hours, what? Same as me, then. The time it took to find you, in the pool. That's not too, too long to hang, Potter."

"Should've been shorter," Harry growled querulously and advanced, impatient, thrusting his hands out, to eagerly grasp his partner's shoulders as he came within reaching distance. He gave Draco a little shake, or tried it, anyway. "_Much_. Next time it will be, trust me on that."

"Well...thanks. For that." Draco immediately glanced away, the slightest hint of colour coming and going across his face.

"It's fine." Harry found he could not for the life of him take his eyes from his partner. He peered over the taller man intensely, patting him down for any evidence Parkinson's Stunner had done Draco lasting damage. "And you really are fine? Draco? They didn't harm you or anything?"

"Fine." Draco smiled down at him as they drew closer. "Just, er, bored."He shrugged. "To tears and to flinders. And famished, a bit."

"Yeah?"

"Yes. And maybe a little angry, yeah? As I couldn't leave here, no matter how I tried. Damn that Pansy. Lovegood, too."

"Right. Good. Brilliant," Harry snapped nis heels together and came to strict atention, shrugging off for the moment the irritating thought of Parkinson and her dubious ways. He squared up his shoulders gladiatorially and firmed his jaw in a highly pugnacious attitude. "Excellent, in fact. Then—"

"Erm..? 'Good', you say? Um, 'then'?" The blond brows quirked in puzzlement as Draco reared back under Harry's grasping hands, peering curiously downwards. "Eh, Harry? You've not struck _your_ head along the way, have you? You're a clumsy oaf someti—"

"Yes, _good_." Harry snarled, and budged right up close, so close he could examine his partner's nose hair if he wanted. He didn't want; they were dark blond, though. And growled on, as he was a bit furious: "_Good_ you're fine, _brilliant_ you're here, safe and sound, exactly where I expected to find you, and yes, _then, _next, you great bloody oblivious wanker, I want to do _this_!"

He went up on his toes just as Draco inclined his pale flawless head. The other man's hands had fallen rather naturally to grip at Harry's waist under his robes.

"What?"

"To you. _With_ you, sod it. Right—fucking—**now**!"

He grabbed at Draco's pointy starched perfectly collar with a spare hand, yanking him closer.

And kissed him, smack on the lips. Like mad.

"Mu-wha-huhrrmmwhaa...?" Draco mumbled at him, eyes wide as two sets of searching fingers feathered up his flushing neck and over his jaw and earlobe, adjusting minutely the angles of their connection, urging on the gaining momentum. "Nnh!"

"Umm," Harry purred, and went at it again, with a will.

Because, of course, _Ron_. And then Parkinson, the wench. _And_ thumb-wrestling _and_ Draco-in-an-apron _and_ all those many notes and Owls and memos, indeed!

Pursed lips met barely parted lips—one set still slightly inchoately angry at all the effort this seemed to require but boldly determined nonetheless; one set quirked at the corners, quite puzzled but quite pleased to be perplexed if it led to where it seemed to be going —and it_ was_ good. An excellent maiden effort. Dry, yes; a little bitten-up on either part from various prior bouts of nervous chewing, and also mostly close-mouthed and glancing, but really very…very…good.

Transcendently good.

Brilliant.

"Oh…I see," Draco observed, grinning, when they paused for a moment. "Oh, alright then. Oh _really_, Harry?"

"Exactly so,"Harry smiled also. "So? Okay? Good?"

"More than. C'mere, you little git. Five hours is an inordinately long time to be stuck waiting on you. I was concerned something had happened."

"Sorry."

"Shut it. Kiss me; I'd rather."

"Okay!"

Super, fantastic _and_ amazing.

Every now and again they would cease for a moment, blinking at each other and quietly relishing the manner in which they slotted into the other one's embrace as if they'd been specifically designed to do so. Or perhaps, just maybe, as if their edges had finally worn down enough, smoothed out sufficiently to allow for it.

Either way, it was lovely.

"Mmm," Draco rumbled after an age of the snogging, a lapse into completely non-regulation on-duty Auror activities which neither of them really took note of or gave a hoot about. "Harry. Not saying I wouldn't've waited for you even longer, though. You _do_, er." He cleared his throat significantly, ducking his chin and pressing his entire face into Harry's neck, "you do realize that, right?"

"Sorry, _yes_—now I do, sure. I'm—_was!_—a little—slow, over it," Harry muttered in reply, equally pink-cheeked. He, too, ducked his chin and ruibbed his nose into that baby-fine hair. It whuffled up his nose, tempting a sneeze, which he stupidly found to be very wonderful.

"S'alright." Draco growled again and clamped them together, mouth to mouth and hip to hip. "Be'er…now," he added, indistinctly, claiming Harry's lips again.

"Mmph!" Harry nodded frantically. "All s-sorted! Mmmph…oh, yes, do that, just like that. Yes….and harder, please._ Harder_. More."

"Really, s'okay, I don't mind it…too much, that you're dense as a hedgerow," Draco mumbled, talking on and on when he wasn't nipping away at Harry's face and neck and whatever else could be conveniently gotten to when two people were glued together by passionate magnetism. "Don't dare change your mind, though. Not now. I have plans for you, partner."

"No….no," Harry gurgled breathily, round a half-mouthful of tongue. "No, not stopping," he swore fervently. "Not…bloody…likely."


	16. Chapter 16

**_Harry—I have a great many follow-up questions for you; I'm sure you're aware. Which we can sort out soonest. However, there's a few that are rather more crucial at this very moment: _**

· **_It's Friday evening, did you know? Moreover, it's Friday evening at six, which translates to 'the weekend', and our particular ARP is successfully concluded. Hullo, partner. _**

· **_Dinner to celebrate? Of course, dinner. Mine, then… or yours? (Don't fret, I know a decent tooth-cleaning spell, no matter which we settle on.) _**

· **_What _****_will_****_ you consent to eat in the morning if not a regular breakfast? Only because I intend to wear you down to the nub, Harry. Use you and abuse you in the kindest of ways possible, ride you very hard indeed and put you away wet all over, and it's my learned opinion you'll be sorely in need of something of substance to place in that very nice midsection of yours, after. (Yes, I do have chocolate frogs, Harry. A whole packet of them. They're Shrunk and to be found in my right-front robes pocket, and no, they don't count as a meal—only a snack. You'll need more than just that, you wily little wanker.)_**

**_Note, please, I'm _****_not_****_ asking if you'll be with me the whole of the weekend—or after. That's a given and you may feel free to presume the reverse will be equally true: I'll be with you, no question. And note as well I handily prevented you from hexing Pansy with boils just now, in the ARP Dept. Final Briefing, thus saving you from terrible repercussions. There are certain items you'll just have to trust me on, Potter, and that is certainly one of them: never (_****_never_****_) fuck with a female of the Slytherin persuasion. Just. Don't. Go. There. _**

**_(For what it's worth, I don't think I'd mess with our mutual friend Lovegood, either.) _**

**_So. Expecting you, Harry. Very soon now, in our (brand-spanking-new) office, with its brand-new expandable settee, suitable for all manner of relaxing, trust-building exercises…~v~_**

**_Draco_**

* * *

_Draco—Look behind you. Love, Harry. _

_PS. Yes, you're right, as always. It__ is__ comfy. And vastly expandable. Also, you do tend to go on and on, don't you? Once you've begun, that is. Ernie was right about that. Ron _did_ say. I suppose I can put up with it, being_

_Fond of you, as I am, though_

_Merlin help me,_

_As I'm probably in for it,_

_Harry_

* * *

"So, Potter," Draco grinned merrily as he offed his scarlet over-robes and fiddled purposefully with his trousers flies and silver belt buckle, "since we're still at the exchanging confidences stage of the game, apparently, the whole 'getting to know you' bit, and since you claim I'm the one who always jabbers on and fixates, _you_ should tell _me, _yeah? What do you recall best from our many lessons? What did you like? And did you gain anything at all useful from all that load of ARP shenanigans? Or, did you think it was just all bollocks, instead?"

"Oh, erm? What, me? You're asking me?"

Draco advanced upon the expansive new sofa at a slow saunter; Harry sent him an admiring look, green eyes glancing greedily. He'd discarded his specs when he'd thrown off his own clothes and Draco was a little blurry yet, but the picture was fast developing. He licked his lips. There were far worse things to feast his eyes on than a smiling Malfoy.

"Yes, you. Of course, you. Surely you've drawn a few conclusions; you've never been a dull fellow, Harry. What did you, for instance, think of the—"

"Hmmm, useful, Draco? But why 'useful'?" Harry came to attention with a start, struggling up on his elbows and wetting his lips in anticipation. Draco had made quite a bit of progress whilst quizzing him. "Useful, is it? Beyond everything else?"

"Erm..." Draco flushed a pale pink and paused his work on his collar buttons. "Yes. Why not? I'd like to believe we've not wasted our time."

"Hmmm. I dunno, really...let me think on it."

"Oh, well. In that case..."

Draco slipped his wand out of his shirt sleeve and gave it a careless little wave before tossing it casually over his shoulder. It landed unerringly dead-centre on the huge new partner's desk the Ministry had outfitted them with, in reward for their successful completion of the ARP tour.

The entry door snicked locked and warded with a tiny click across the way; Harry knew full well there were very few others even still in the building at this late hour on a Friday evening and interruptions were highly unlikely. Still, it was nice to feel…doubly secure. As, from the look of matters, there was soon to be a cream-hued dick dangling half-erect very near his nose.

He could discern it was half-erect already just from the way it thrust against the irksome trousers Draco had yet to discard.

He could assume it would be similar in colouring to the rest of what he'd glimpsed of Draco Malfoy: pale and smooth and sleek, with hints of gold here and there.

And he had to admit, at least to himself, he was not exactly in the proper mood to muse over the events of his ARP experience; he was much more interested in the end result. Specifically, the Malfoy installed in his life. His partner.

The Malfoy, in his life, and currently in painfully slow process of gracefully removing all his garments.

"Harry."

Yes. Just a few minor details in the way...excess clothing, distracting chatter. Then they could get on with the getting off at last, and he'd finally learn what those trousers—

"Harry?"

Harry tucked away a lovely passing thought (Draco's skin as compared to the colour of Devonshire cream, though his foreskin would like be all plummy) and regretfully, dutifully, concentrated on all he'd learnt, these past weeks, of Draco Malfoy. As Draco was insisting, the git.

"Harry!"

Oh, but he rather liked the man, 'Draco Malfoy', despite that. Rather a lot.

"Well, let me see."

He stretched lazily as he lounged all over their new couch, affecting nonchalance, enjoying the feel of nubbly velvet on his shirtless back, the cushiony soft down pillowing his bared arse. His bum felt a bit odd, maybe from a strange sense of anticipation, but pleasantly enough, even so, and his mouth watered as he wriggled, gaze darting up to cling to his new partner's in a deliberately flirtatious manner.

"I like what I see, I think."

"Harry. Focus!"

Of all things, he wasn't exactly accustomed to feeling flirtacious, much less acting it. And he was nervous, yes he was—but in the best of all possible ways. Draco was a treat, walking.

Draco was a treat, in any conjugation. But Harry? Harry was a bit nerve-wracked, yet.

"Fine. Which ones, specifically?" It was ever so hard to summon a single damn about ARP, though. "Are you thinking of?"

"The Muggle fencing, I think," Draco smirked at him, striking a bit of a deliberate pose, both his trousers and his silk pants abruptly landing on the floor with a little clank and rustle.

Harry's eyes widened; yes, Draco was indeed both pale and plummy! And the carpet matched the drapes and even the bloody nostril hairs!

"Always my particular favourite." Draco toed off his boots casually, a move that drew Harry's eyes directly to the flex of thigh and calf, the indent of a hip bone. And he grinned while doing it, a brilliant flash that spoke of a penchant for teasing, never far hidden under that smooth surface. Wanker—as if Harry would even think to glance away with all that Malfoy on parade! "That'd be most appropriate, I'd say," he went on, cocking a brow archly. "To sum it up, our experience together. Don't you agree?"

"Oh?"

"Well, I'm obviously considering the classic positions, Harry." Draco returned to the business of unbuttoning his shirt and cuffs. Partly undone, his shirttails drifted behind him when he halted again and bent double, dragging off each silk sock. "...In this case."

"Yeah?" Harry prompted, encouragingly, stifling a snort over the sight of Malfoy, hopping from foot to foot, like some crazed stork. "Go on."

"Thrust-and-parry, remember?" Socks off, Draco stood tall once more and pinned his paetner to the divan with a piercing stare. "Touché…engage…_zones_."

He even went so far as to leer, just little; not so much as to look ridiculous doing it, and not so subtly menacing Harry felt uneasy.

"Defensive stances….and there's a cartload of…_other_… applications I can think of right off the bat for that sort of rehearsed motion, don't you agree? Physical chess and all."

His voice lowered by degrees, descending into a intimately seductive murmur, as Draco finally arrived by the settee.

"Me, I prefer the lunges at close quarters. The sound of naked blade to blade, striking. You?"

"Oh! Corps-a-corps, you mean?" Harry, gathering his wits about him by main force, plastered on a winning smile for his partner, in process of kneeing his way onto the middle cushion of the divan and gently shoving Harry over to make room with a pale-skinned hip and a strong forearm. "When we cross the line, then."

he blinked into grey eyes, steady on his, and swallowed hard. Draco situated himself comfortably. Smiled down at Harry from his hovering position poised over him, and it was a sweet, sweet moment, that.

"Exactly—when we cross the line." He nodded. "Er, speaking of, make some room, Potter," he added with a mock-scowl, and flung Harry's arm up with a quick flick of his fingers. "You're hogging the middle all to yourself, grabby-hands prat. And, yes, of course I meant the 'close quarters'." The smirk was back, redoubled. "Where's the fun of it if we're not constantly in danger of bodily contact, Harry?"

"That's my favourite by far," Harry agreed softly, amiably shifting another inch. Or five; he wasn't particular. he ended squashed up against the back of the couch, but Draco solved that by reaching for him and drawing him close. "Bodily contact...," Harry sighed, relaxing into the cage of arms and elbows. "S'good shit. I did enjoy the thumb-wrestling, though—very much, really."

"Really, now?"

Harry blushed, dropping his gaze. "Was holding hands with you, no matter_ why_."

"Oh, me as well," Draco smiled.

"Um." Harry looked up again, oddly reassured he wasn't making an utter fool of himself, cuddling with his partner at the workplace. "...Though I look forward to learning more about the real Muggle fencing, maybe trying it without that spell Ahmed taught me…if you might be willing to instruct me, sometime?"

"Of course I would." Draco looked very pleased—and pleasantly surprised, too, as he bent his head down. Harry received a glancing kiss from pursed lips, just a wee peck in passing, and another stellar Malfoy grin. "I'd love the chance, Harry. And see? Told you you'd enjoy that part of ARP."

"Yes…you did," Harry admitted willingly, reaching arms up to wrap them round Draco's neck. "But the best part by far, Draco? Of all we did?"

"Mmm?" Draco drew close again willingly enough, his lean length finally consenting to cascade in a slow fall all down upon the length of Harry's shorter frame, when he lay, warm and heavy. "Tell me more, Harry."

"Was you," Harry puffed, a bit breathless being squashed. But a bit happy, undeniably. "You're a bit fit in the gear, partner, silly wire chickenn coop cage on your head aside. And when you're all wet and mad as hell fire, bent on justice over the likes of _me_—well, it's—ah! _Exciting_. Super exciting."

Draco tossed his head, eyes going very glinty and steel-hued at the recollection. "Indeed. Any time, Harry. Any time. If it's called for. Which it was; bloody Lovegood."

"Yes, well, but," Harry chuckled, "that aside, I must admit, I rather happen to think you're far better out of all clothes in general, Draco, even my spare apron, which was terribly fetching on you, by the bye. Rather…delicious, I find, this prospect. You, in the buff."

"Delicious yourself, flatterer," Draco murmured, sliding his person over so he was pressing Harry even more firmly into the cushions, at shoulder and hip. "Not the only here who could be called that, you know?"

He settled his weight carefully as he relaxed, careful always to allow Harry breathing room.

"Sweet talker."

He licked a hot stripe across Harry's lips, his flickering tongue tasting of coffee and the Muggle micro-Altoids sweets he always kept in a pocket of his robes—curiously strong, sharply minty. Harry smiled his pleasure at the lingering tang of spearmint in the very small gap of humid air that lay between them.

"But keep talking to me, do," Draco continued, with another brilliant half-smile for Harry. "Flattery will get you everywhere, I promise. Naked flattery in particular. I've had plenty of wanks to that apron, I'll have you know. There's a lot of possibilities yet to be had, what with those thick flat strings. Sturdy stuff, the Muggle-made."

He kissed his way down Harry's chest, taking his time over it.

"Oh, s'not flattery, exactly," Harry replied, reaching a hand to tilt his partner's chin at an angle sufficiently high that he could lay a tiny teasing nip to the rather severe jaw line...and the nose. Draco scowled at the indignity, but his lip twitch wasn't very convincing. "You're just very—um."

Draco was all angles actually—and great swooping elegant lines: stark and monochrome, marble-white and glossy surfaces, a polished effigy…excepting presently the hectic pink flush spreading rapidly down his chest from his high-stacked cheekbones. And the cock—Harry could hardly ignore what he was rapidly coming to think of as 'the' Cock.

He couldn't see, no, but he definiitly knew it was there. Just there, against his inner thigh.

"Um?" Draco prompted, his gaze very hot. Harry flushed under the weight of it.

"You're…a pretty boy. Er…man. A fit—" Harry shrugged. "Well. I always thought so."

"No, you didn't," Draco replied promptly, with a tiny frown. But that cleared away nearly instantly, mist dissapating in sunlight. "But I'm very glad you do now, Harry."

"Um," Harry groaned, distracted, not quite listening. Draco's dick had twitched, prompting a tremor in his own. It was a truly lovely cock. Generously built.

"...Yes?"

Harry swallowed hard; his mouth was watering… _again_.

"Yes…oh, _hungry_," he moaned, under his breath, and his attentive partner cried out softly—"Harry!"—and instantly hauled him closer, half yanking him up off the cushions and into the cradle of his arms.

"Draco?" Harry gulped, blinking. "I find I'm...I hope you don't mind it, but I'm—very—er?"

He shifted, barely able to bear up under the pressure of the situation, and set off a whole other symphony of sensation. Which had him groaning...again.

"Gods, Harry," Draco groaned right along with him, his eyes closing for an instant, grinding down his pelvis in a meaningful way. "Oh…Harry." Harry had known his lover was already half-hard just from looking; by the feel of it he'd advanced to fully engorged in the blink of an eye, the inhale of a tortured gasp. "I'm thrilled—I'm bloody ecstatic you think so, really I am. I want you, you know? So badly; it's awful. Been dying with want for you, all this time."

"Me, too," Harry nodded frantically. "All this time."

"Hmph! Have you now?" Draco beetled his fair brows instantly, laying tiny disgruntled kisses up Harry's exposed throat and onto his chin. "Liar, liar, pantaloons on fire." He licked the corners of Harry's mouth, effectively stopping Harry's protest before it started. "Huh," he snorted softly. "Wouldn't have known it by me, not for an instant. Thought you only just barely tolerated me, at first. You were so…short, when we happened to meet. All business, always."

"No, no." Harry frowned fretfully, struggling to find the proper words to say how he'd felt. As he _had_ felt, he'd just not ever sorted it out that he'd been _feeling_. "No, I was only…I didn't know much about you, Draco. Less than I thought I did. I think Pansy and Luna have done me a huge favour, really. I wouldn't have sorted it out without the programme, you know? I don't tend to think much about…things…like that. People, when they aren't, er, cases."

"No?" Draco's mouth curved mischievously. "Colour _me _surprised, Harry. I'd've have wagered you would've been all over a chance to pick me apart. Always was curious why you left me pretty much alone, all these years. Not like we didn't have a…history."

"Mmm," Harry shifted into a shrug, enjoying the way their abdomens came together—and the pressure his motion brought to bear on their matched bits. he was growing accustomed, and it was exhilerating, yes, but also...also very comfortable. "Of course we have a history, but that wasn't it. No, never." And there was no question his dick was just as interested as his partner's, from the feel of it; he had to fight the urge to reach down and maybe rub them together; experiment. "No, not at all. I wasn't avoiding you so much, Draco, especially. It was more…more I didn't know how to approach you. You always look so—"

"Insular?" Draco suggested easily, lifting one narrow brow, the arch of dark blond nearly engaging his tumbled white-gilt fringe as he tilted his head enquiringly. "Segregated, perhaps?" He nodded, lips quirking. "Yes, well, par for the course, Harry. It's better not to encourage people to get too close. Leastways, that's what I was _taught_—though I do admit I've learnt very differently since I signed up with Aurors. Rather was forced, if you know what I mean? Not that I really minded it. Not an idiot, of course."

"Yes…" Harry sighed and released his casual grip on Draco's shoulder, slithering his palm down the length of the long ribcage till the hollow of one spare hip lay beneath his hand. "Kind of why I stuck with Ron for so long, actually. The not-knowing people very well. Didn't like them randomly muscling into my….my personal space, either? Not if I didn't know them already. And trust them."

"You're a very private person, Harry." Draco features took on a pensive cast; his eyes softening to a dark, molten pewter shade as his pupils bloomed wide. "As I am. I wanted…well, what ever I may've wanted didn't seem too likely, and I." He paused, dropping his gaze to stare narrow-eyed at Harry's kiss-pinkened neck. "Er…I."

"You what?"Harry asked, rubbing his hand slowly up the ridge of bone along Draco's spine. He gave a little pat of encouragement, when the man didn't immediately continue, right on his left arsecheek. "What _did_ you want, Draco?"

"Simple." Draco shivered, his fingers fluttering nervously. Harry felt him tense, felt the knock of their assorted anklebones as his partner twined their legs together. "_You_, for one. Your attention—your notice. But, you, you were always." He heaved a sigh and Harry's lashes lifted immediately so he could meet Draco's earnest gaze curiously. "You had Weasley, so…yeah. I didn't bother."

"Wish you had," Harry grumped, eyes sparkling. "Should've, Draco. We could've been doing much this earlier, arse. Wouldn't have wasted all these years thinking I was kind of, um…" he blushed, turning his chin sharply away, "Um…sexless. Er, asexual, is it? Sort of. I mean, after Ginny, I did. A bit."

"Sexless—you?"

Draco chuckled and instantly pressed their groins together, a quick hand sliding in to grasp their two dicks into one palmful, where Harry's had only played with the possibility a moment before. He squeezed rhythmically and Harry grunted, helplessly.

"Hardly," he scoffed, very dubious indeed. "Gods, no—you're all—Harry!" He growled his frustration, nuzzling into Harry's neck and sighing gustily. "No, not at all _sexless_, Harry. Not by a long shot, not ever—I've seen you tuck in, remember? You eat like you're famished all the time, Harry—it's a bit gutting. But maybe you're more…more like me, yeah? Like me, in that what you wanted wasn't so readily available—or so it seemed. So you didn't bother with it, much."

"Ron says I'm a little clueless, actually," Harry grinned happily; the squeeze had become a gentle twist-and-roll of knucklebones over glans. It was...very nice. "Er…more a lot, actually. Which isn't a bad thing, either."

"No," Draco laughed suddenly, a burbling little chortle of delight. "Kept you well out of trouble and off the streets, didn't it? Till I could come along and dazzle you with all my many charms. Which I have, thanking you. Er...am."

He pointedly glanced at their positions relative to each other, a revealing circumstance indeed. And squeezed again, with unmistakable intent.

"You…" Harry breathed, licking his lips in anticipation, "are indeed very charming. Show me more of that, then?"

"Gladly."

Draco thrust down at Harry deliberately, rolling his pelvis; withdrew and thrust again, their dicks jouncing and sliding together within his increasingly slippery grip. "This is me…being charming." It was passing damp between them; a fine sheen of perspiration had been rising on their separate skins all this while as they grew more used to the feel of one another—and more excited by every touch. "And I'll show you anything you want, Harry, any time you want. Just ask me."

"Then…" Harry went red as fire, clutching at Draco's shoulders as they reared up and over, intent on drawing him close again. "Then,' he mumbled against Draco's parted lips, having achieved his goal, "please… show me what lovers are like, Draco? 'Cause I've never had a real one and I—"

He gasped involuntarily as Draco lowered his head and set his open mouth to the sensitive hollow at the base of his straining throat, licking at it. Shivered as Draco blew lightly across the dampened skin there. "Oh, Harry."

"And I think I'd like it, rather. A bit."

"Not…anyone? Ever since the Weasley girl?" Draco drew away, handsome features crinkling into outright puzzlement. "At all? All this time, Harry?"

"No, not really," Harry replied simply. "No."

"Then…it's plain as the nose on my face." Draco laid the gentlest of kisses upon Harry's half-parted lips, simultaneously bearing down with all his weight so that Harry could feel every hot inch of him, all alive with desire. "They were fools, the lot of them, letting you get away, Harry, and I'm glad you're shot of them now. As you need _me_—"

"I _do_," Harry gasped, closing his eyes as Draco interrupted himself mid-sentence to kiss Harry deeply. He arched up when he was able again, eyes wide open, and nodded frantically his positive. "Ye—es, I do, Dra—aaahhh...mmm..."

"And_ I_." Another hard kiss, all tongue, and a long-fingered hand spread flat across Harry's flinching bum spoke volumes. "Need _you_. Now—come here, come closer. Let me show you, Harry, everything there is to know about lovers. I want to, ever so much."

"Please!" Harry breathed, and went, trusting.

_Finite. _


End file.
